Family as a supporting factor for language maintenance in Indonesian young adults from Leuwinanggung village

The aim of this research is to investigate the role of the family as a supporting factor for Sundanese language maintenance in young adults living in Leuwinanggung Village, Tapos Subdistrict, Depok City, West Java. According to Fromkin, Rodman, and Hyams (2011), the preservation of language can be observed from young adults' language use because a language can be considered dying when no children continue learning the language. This research aims to explain how family support has facilitated Sundanese preservation in Jakarta suburbs, especially in Leuwinanggung, which is only 19 kilometers from the city center of Jakarta. Applying mixed method, which is a combination of quantitative and qualitative research practices (Cresswell 2012), this research analyzed data regarding respondent's personal identity and language use in their daily lives. The data were collected by using a questionnaire distributed among young adults in Leuwinanggung Village. The criteria for participation were young students who had been residing in Leuwinanggung for more than ten years and had a Sundanese parent. The findings show that the majority of respondents tended to use Sundanese with their grandfather, grandmother, mother, and father, and this confirms that Sundanese is still dominantly used within the family domain. However, a number of respondents also declared that they tended to use Sundanese with their peer groups, especially peers who grew up together in Leuwinanggung. Several problems, however, still persist regarding Sundanese language preservation in Jakarta suburbs. Similar to other areas in Indonesia, one of the biggest problems is the threat from the national language, Indonesian, against indigenous languages like Sundanese. Nevertheless, for some respondents, this situation has triggered them to preserve their Sundanese mother tongue by maintaining its use in both the family and neighborhood domains. This research thus shows the current conditions of language use in Leuwinanggung which had yet to be studied to date.