STRATEGIES FOR PRESERVING REGIONAL LANGUAGES THROUGH THE YOUNG DIGITAL GENERATION: CREATIVE ECOSYSTEM APPROACH
Keywords:
Language Maintenance Strategy, Digital Generation, Creative Economy, Social Media, Cultural RevitalizationAbstract
Amidst the hegemony of foreign languages and global pop culture, regional languages in Indonesia are experiencing significant speaker erosion among Generation Z. This article aims to formulate regional language maintenance strategies that are adaptive to the digital ecosystem. Unlike conservative approaches that emphasize linguistic purism, this study offers a pragmatic-creative approach. The study uses a qualitative method with library research, analyzing the phenomenon of locality-based content creators and digital sociolinguistic literature. The results identify three main strategies for regional language maintenance: (1) Content Gamification, transforming language learning into interactive challenges on social media; (2) Positive Commodification, turning local dialects into economic value-added in Personal Branding; and (3) Media Transposition, transforming oral traditions into modern digital formats (podcasts/vlogs). It is concluded that regional language maintenance can no longer be done top-down (school curriculum), but must grow bottom-up through the empowerment of digital communities that make regional languages a profitable and relevant creative asset
Downloads
References
Blommaert, J. (2010). The sociolinguistics of globalization. Cambridge University Press.
Crystal, D. (2011). Internet linguistics: A student guide. Routledge.
Cunliffe, D. (2007). Minority languages and the Internet: New threats, new opportunities. Multilingual Matters, 138, 133.
Erniati, E., & Wijaya, D. (2023). Patterns of language maintenance and use in the family environment in Negeri Wakasihu, Maluku. JOLLT Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, 11(4), 555–574.
Fishman, J. A. (1991). Reversing language shift: Theoretical and empirical foundations of assistance to threatened languages (Vol. 76). Multilingual matters.
Hidayat, A. A., Mahendra, Y. A., Anggraini, A. D., & Bagus, S. T. (2024). Dominasi Bahasa Gaul Di Kalangan Gen Z Dalam Konteks Presentasi Akademik: Studi Diskriptif Pada Mahasiswa Universitas Trunojoyo Madura. Jurnal Media Akademik (JMA), 2(12).
Jenkins, H. (2009). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. The MIT press.
Kornai, A. (2013). Digital language death. PloS One, 8(10), e77056.
Lestari, E., Setyanto, S. R., & Mahanani, E. N. (2025). Pemanfaatan Gadget Sebagai Media Pelestarian Bahasa Daerah Bagi Anak Usia Dini. MENTARI: Jurnal Pendidikan Anak Usia Dini, 5(1).
Patriasya, P. G., Ridwan, A. D., Susetyo, M. B., & Wicaksono, A. T. (2025). MERAWAT TRADISI MERESPON MODERNISASI: REVITALISASI PENDIDIKAN AGAMA ISLAM DALAM DINAMIKA PEMBELAJARAN KONTEMPORER. Journal of Educational and Religious Perspectives, 1(3), 85–97.
Rumonin, S. S., Tutuarima, F., & Patmawati, S. A. (2025). Pelestarian Bahasa Daerah Sebagai Penguatan Civic Culture pada Masyarakat Negeri Keffing Kabupaten Seram Bagian Timur. AR-RUMMAN: Journal of Education and Learning Evaluation, 2(1), 65–72.
Suharyo, S., & Nurhayati, N. (2020). Pemilihan dan pemertahanan bahasa Jawa pada kaum perempuan pesisir Rembang. LITERA, 19(3), 397–413.
Suryani, I. (2024). Pengaruh Media Sosial terhadap Perubahan Pola Berbahasa Masyarakat Aceh Singkil. ALACRITY: Journal of Education, 596–605.
Tambunsaribu, G. (2025). The Student’s Perspective Concerning the Regional Language Maintenance at Universitas Kristen Indonesia. Jurnal Onoma: Pendidikan, Bahasa Dan Sastra, 11(2), 1672–1680.
Vioreza, N., Supriatna, N., Hakam, K. A., & Setiawan, W. (2022). Analisis ketersediaan bahan ajar berbasis kearifan lokal dalam menumbuhkan ecoliteracy. Jurnal Cakrawala Pendas, 8(1), 147–156.
Zuckermann, G. (2020). Revivalistics: From the genesis of Israeli to language reclamation in Australia and beyond. Oxford University Press.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Ahmad Dimyati Ridwan, Javi Putra Hernawinata, Rita Rosmaya, Fitri Amalia, Ai Nurlatipah, Rofah Musyarofah (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
