What lies behind the ‘cracks’ in grammar

A young female student’s precise correction of a religious leader’s grammar has become, in the essayist’s view, a warning about how knowledge can lose its humanity. The video appeared after Indonesia’s 35th congress, when the noise of political contest had subsided and calls for unity had returned to the foreground.

Technically, the student’s argument contained nothing wrong. She used syntax, morphology and lexicography with the accuracy of a diligent pupil. But the writer asks whether language should be treated so harshly, and whether grammar should become a cold judge of spoken words without regard for the human event in which those words were delivered.

The sharper concern is political. The linguistic reprimand, the essay argues, was suddenly used by people who remained disappointed after the contest had ended. The author rejects any hierarchy that places grammar or linguistics above philosophy and literature, just as classical books do not automatically stand above modern thought.

Classical scholars often linked careful speech with dignity. Imra’ al-Qays warned that a person who could not protect his tongue from disgrace had lost an important inner defence. Ali bin Muhammad al-’Alawi wrote that a young person’s charm and standing could collapse through a grammatical error, while Ishaq bin Khalaf al-Bahrani said grammar could correct a faltering tongue and restore honour.

The essay then turns to Ferdinand de Saussure’s view that the relationship between sound and meaning is arbitrary. Language depends on fragile social agreement, it says. When that agreement disappears, words can become empty forms. The argument ultimately calls for linguistic care, but also for restraint, compassion and an awareness that grammar must not be turned into a weapon.