<b>Indigenous Languages Learning Experience for City Children in Indonesia: A Narrative Inquiry Study</b>

This narrative inquiry investigates the Indigenous language learning experiences of nine city children (Grade 5-6) in Tebing Tinggi, North Sumatra, Indonesia. Frame by the SECI model (Socialization, Externalization, Combination, Internalization), the study documents children’s attempts to learn ancestral languages using digital tools across nine community-based sessions. Findings reveal a systematically broken knowledge creation cycle: intergenerational transmission has failed, children possess no tacit linguistic knowledge to externalize, digital tools produce errors due to lack of training data for low resource languages, and internalization cannot occur. No automatic exact translation app exists for any child’s tribal language, search results were frequently inaccurate, public libraries contained no lesson about indigenous language writing books. When digital tools failed, children switched to English, a pattern theorized as “digital push” toward language shift. Student feedback confirms that all respondents’ agreed information was difficult to find on Google, and children reported learning more English vocabulary than tribal words during learning activities. Despite linguistic failure, children developed empathy and anti-racist awareness. The study proposes that for urban heritage learners with no tacit knowledge, the SECI cycle must be reconfigured (Combination before Externalization). Implications include the urgent need for authoritative Indigenous language translation apps for particular Indigenous language, mandate school instruction, community cultural events, and cultural parenting programs. The absence of digital infrastructure for Indigenous languages is not a neutral technical gap but an active mechanism of language shift.