The term "911 polisi" functions as a compound noun phrase. It syntactically combines the numerical designator "911," which represents the emergency telephone number in the North American Numbering Plan, with "polisi," the noun for "police" in the Indonesian and Malay languages. This phrase specifically identifies the police as the emergency service being referenced or sought via the 911 system.
This linguistic construction is a product of cultural transfer, where the globally recognized "911" serves as a synecdoche for any emergency service. While the national emergency police number in Indonesia is 110 and the integrated emergency number is 112, the adoption of "911" reflects its pervasive presence in international media. The phrase demonstrates code-mixing, a linguistic phenomenon where speakers embed elements from one language into another. Here, the number "911" functions as a loan-concept, representing the idea of an immediate emergency response channel.
In a practical application, the phrase serves as an unambiguous signifier of an urgent need for law enforcement, particularly in digital contexts such as internet searches or voice-assistant commands. It effectively communicates a user's intent to contact police emergency services by leveraging a universally understood identifier, thereby transcending potential knowledge gaps about specific local emergency numbers. The primary function of the phrase is to initiate a request for police assistance in a crisis.
