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Marcel Bonneff
After reviewing the circumstances and results of the first congress of Javanese in Semarang (1991) and relating the proceedings of the second congress held at Batu in 1996, the article synthesizes the principle questions debated concerning the politics of language, usage, teaching, the press and publishing, literature and the arts, spirituality and values. In general, the evidence of a certain decline in spoken usage and the lack of interest in literature calls for concrete measures, which demand great institutional investment. But for the author, this congress, which put strong emphasis on cultural and spiritual values connected with language, can be seen from the point of view of its function in reinflecting identity. It seems as though Javanese must respond more and more to a need for symbolic and ideological " retraditionalizing " (according to the demands of " Javanism" [kejawen]) to the detriment of linguistic communication properly so called, bound to Indonesianizing.