Indonesia has rich local languages. Unfortunately, some of local languages have become extinct. Moseley (2010) in “Atlas of The World’s Languages in Danger” mentioned that there are 12 languages in Indonesia that have become extinct. Serawai Language in South Bengkulu is on the extinct list. This has driven the interest from Tara Belinda (Communication), Arif Hidayat (Communication) and Adesta Feby Putri Setiadi (History) with Benni Setiawan, M.Si as supervisor to conduct a research about Serawai Language.
Tara Belinda explained that the research was conducted in 6 districts in South Bengkulu. The research objectives are understanding people response on Serwai Language, learning the level of understanding of Serawai Language in various age levels and explaining factors that influence level of understanding of Serawai language. The research product will be scientific articles and pocketbooks for daily conversation in Serawai Language.
"The conclusions of this study include 97.78% of the people of South Bengkulu who are proud of the Serawai Language but lack of understanding, the level of understanding of the Serawai Language at the age of 13-15 years is 68.91% (moderate) and the age of 25-65 years is 90.53 % (well). The factors causing the decrease in understanding of Serawai Language are due to the low frequency of the use of Serawai Language, mixing other languages with Mother Language (Serawai Language), the influence of globalization and modernization and the absence of local content of Serawai Language "she explained
Through this research, continued Tara Belinda, the team offered a number of suggestions, namely the need for a systematic effort to use the Serawai Language again; elders and the community need to use Serawai more often, and the government needs to hold activities like the Serawai Culture Festival. (Eko; Tj.Lak)
