Indonesian language

Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a standardized dialect of the Malay language that was officially defined with the declaration of Indonesia's independence in 1945. Malaysian and Indonesian languages remain quite similar.

Indonesia is the fourth most populous nations in the world. Of its large population the number of people who fluently speak Indonesian is fast approaching 100%, thus making Indonesian one of the most widely spoken languages in the world ^[1] Most Indonesians, aside from speaking the national language, are often fluent in another regional language/local dialect (examples include Minangkabau, Sundanese and Javanese) which are commonly used at home and within their local community. Most formal education, as well as nearly all national media and other forms of communication, are conducted in Indonesian. In East Timor, formerly part of Indonesia, the Indonesian language is recognized by the constitution as one of the two working languages (the other is English, alongside the official languages of Tetum and Portuguese).

The Indonesian name for the language is Bahasa Indonesia (literally language of Indonesia); this name is sometimes used in English as well. The language is sometimes referred to as "Bahasa" by English-speakers, though this simply means "language" and thus is not an official term for the Indonesian language.

Linguistics

At a basic level, Indonesian is often considered one of the easiest languages to learn for adult foreigners. This is largely due to its relatively unsophisticated and regular grammar, as well as phonology. ^[2]. To a certain degree, Indonesian can be regarded as an open language. Over the years, foreign languages such as Sanskrit, Chinese, Arabic, Portuguese, Dutch and English have enriched and expanded the Indonesian, mostly through trade contacts and international media. Because of its open status, there are those who regard Indonesian (as well as Malaysian and other forms of Malay) as being 'soulless' and lacking in sufficient vocabularly and special terminologies. On the other hand, some linguists consider this view to be a fallacy or common misconception. ^[3] The openness of the Indonesian language is not an indication of soullessness nor a lack of native terms as most adopted words do have native equivalents. For example, the word asimilasi (from the English word "assimilation") can also be communicated in its native form penggabungan. Many aspects of Indonesian grammar are relatively simple to grasp, particularly in comparison to languages such as English. This is mostly due to the fact that Indonesian does not recognize verb tenses, plural forms, articles and gender distinction for the third person pronouns. However, neither do many other languages traditionally regarded as 'complex', including Chinese (see Chinese grammar). Generally, Indonesian (and Malay) are regarded as the easiest Asian languages to learn. This notion is often associated with the fact that Indonesian and Malay no longer employ the use of complex characters within their writing system (but rather utilize the Latin alphabet). Similar cases can also be seen in other Southeast Asian languages such as Vietnamese and Tagalog. In addition, the simplicity of Indonesian grammar at a beginners/basic level also has the disadvantage of misleading many learners of Indonesian into thinking that more advanced Indonesian grammar is just as simple. ^[4]

History

Indonesian is a normative form of the Malay language, an Austronesian (or Malayo-Polynesian) language which had been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries, and was elevated to the status of official language with the Indonesian declaration of independence in 1945, drawing inspiration from the Sumpah Pemuda (Youth's Oath) event in 1928. Because of its origins, Indonesian (in its most standard form) is mutually intelligible with the official Malaysian form of Malay. However it does differ from Malaysian in some aspects, with differences in pronunciation and vocabulary. These differences are mainly due to the Dutch and Javanese influences on Indonesian.

Whilst Indonesian is spoken as a mother tongue (first language) by only a small proportion of Indonesia's large population (i.e. mainly those who reside within the vicinity of Jakarta), cumulatively, well over 200 million people speak the national language - some with varying degrees of proficiency. In a nation which boasts well over 300 native languages and a vast array of ethnic groups, the use of proper or 'good and correct' Indonesian (as opposed to Indonesian slang or regional dialects) is an essential means of communication across the archipelago. Use of the national language is abundant in the media, government bodies, schools, universities, workplaces, amongst some members of the Indonesian upper-class or nobility and also in many other more formal situations.

Most native speakers of Indonesian would agree that the standard, correct version of the Indonesian language is rarely used in daily communication. One can find standard correct Indonesian in books and newspapers, or listen to it when watching the news or television broadcasts, but few native Indonesian speakers use formally correct language in their daily conversations. While this is a phenomenon common to most languages in the world (for example, spoken English does not always correspond to written standards), the degree of "correctness" of spoken Indonesian (in terms of grammar and vocabulary) by comparison to its written form is noticeably low. This is mostly due to the fact that most Indonesians tend to combine certain aspects of their own local languages (eg. Javanese, Sundanese, Balinese, and even Chinese dialects, particularly Hokkien) with Indonesian. The result is the creation of various types of 'regional' Indonesian, the very types that a foreigner is most likely to hear upon arriving in any Indonesian city or town. This phenomenon is exacerbated by the use of Indonesian slang, particularly in the cities. A classic example of a speaker of accented Indonesian is former president Soeharto, whose Javanese accent came through whenever he delivered a speech.

The Dutch colonization left an imprint on the Indonesian language that can be seen in words such as polisi (police), kualitas (quality), wartel (carrot), kamar (room), rokok (cigarette), kantor (office), and resleting (zipper). Alongside Malay, Portuguese was the lingua franca for trade throughout the archipelago from the sixteenth century through to the early nineteenth century. Indonesian words derived from Portuguese include sabun (soap), meja (table), jendela (window), gereja (church), bendera (flag) and Minggu (from domingo = Sunday).^[5] Some of the many words of Chinese origin include pisau (匕首 - knife), loteng, (upper floor), mie (noodles), lumpia (潤餅 -springroll), cawan, (茶碗 - teacup) and even the widely used slang terms gua and lu， (from the Hokkien goa 我 and lu/li 你 - meaning 'you' and 'I/ me'). From Sanskrit came words such as kaca (mirror), raja (king), bumi/ dunia (earth/ world) and agama (religion). Words of Arabic origin include Arabic kabar (news), selamat/ salam (a greeting) and kamus (dictionary). There are also words derived from Javanese, e.g. aku (meaning I/ me (informal) and its derivative form, mengaku (to confess).

Classification

The Indonesian language (or bahasa Indonesia) is part of the Western Malayo-Polynesian subgroup of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian languages. According to the Ethnologue, Indonesian is modelled after Riau Malay, a form of Old Malay originally spoken in Northeast Sumatera.^{[citation needed]}

Geographic distribution

Indonesian is the lingua franca of Nusantara and is commonly referred to as bahasa Indonesia in Indonesian. The language is spoken throughout Indonesia (and East Timor), although it is used most extensively as a first language in urban areas and usually as a second langauge in more rural parts of Indonesia. It is also spoken by an additional 1.5+ million people worldwide, particularly in the Netherlands, the Philippines and Malaysia and some parts of Southern Thailand, Brunei, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Australia and the United States.[1].

Official status

Indonesian (bahasa Indonesia) is the official language of Indonesia.

Sounds

Phonology

The following are phonemes of modern Indonesian.

Indonesian also has the diphthongs /ai/, /au/, and /oi/. In closed syllables, such as air (water), however, the two vowels are not pronounced as a diphthong.

Note: The vowels between parentheses are allophones while the consonants in parentheses are loan phonemes and as such only occur in loanwords.

Learning pronunciation

Here are a few useful tips for the learner:

• /k/, /p/, and /t/ are unaspirated, i.e. they are not followed by a noticeable puff of air as they often are in English words.
• /t/ and /d/ are dental, rather than alveolar as in English.
• When /k/ is at the end of a syllable it becomes a glottal stop, which sounds like it is cut off sharply e.g. baik, bapak. This is similar to a number of English dialects where final /t/ is glottalized ("got", "what"). Only a few Indonesian words have this sound in the middle, e.g. bakso (meatballs), and it may be represented by an apostrophe in Arabic derived words such as Al Qur'an.
• Stress is placed on the penultimate (second-to-last) syllable of each base word. But if this syllable contains a schwa then the accent moves to the last syllable.

For more, and to listen to examples, see SEASite Guide to Pronunciation of Indonesian

Grammar

Main article: Indonesian grammar

Adjective

Unlike in English, adjectives in the Indonesian language follow nouns:

Affix

The Indonesian language uses a complex system of affixes (i.e. prefix, infix, suffix and confix (circumfix)). Affixes are applied with certain rules which depend on the initial letter of a base word (BW = word, eg. a habitual verb, adjective, etc in its simplest form), and/or the sound combination of the second syllable. For example:

• The affix Ber + ajar (teach) = BeLajar (Note the deletion of 'R' and te addition of 'L')
• The affixes Me + ajar + -kan = meNGajarkan (Note the addition of 'NG')

By comparison

• The affix Ber + judi (gamble) = Berjudi (Note that Ber- remains unchanged)
• The affixes Me + judi + -kan = meNjudikan (Note the addition of 'N')

Also, depending on the affix used, a word can have different grammatical meanings (e.g. me + makan (memakan) means to eat something (in the sense of digesting it), while di + makan (dimakan) means to be eaten (passive voice), ter + makan (termakan) means to accidentally being eaten. Often two different affixes are used to change the meaning of a word (e.g. duduk means to sit down, whereas men + duduk + kan (mendudukkan) means to sit someone/ something down. Men + duduk + i means to sit on something, di + duduk + kan (didudukkan) means to be sat down, diduduki means to be sat on, etc).

As with any language, Indonesian grammar can often present an array of inconsistancies and exceptions. Some base words when combined with two affixes (eg. me + BW + kan) can produce an adjective rather than a verb, or even both. For example, bosan when combined with the affixes me- and -kan produces the word membosankan, meaning boring or to bore (someone). However, not all base words can be combined with affixes, nor are they always consistant in their subsequent usage and meaning. A prime example is the word tinggal which, when combined with affixes, can change quite dramatically in both meaning and grammatical use:

• Tinggal (base word (BW) form) = to reside, live (in a place)
• Meninggal (MeN+BW) = to die/ pass away
• Meninggalkan (MeN+BW+kan) = to leave (a place)
• Ketinggalan (Ke+BW+an) = to miss (a bus, train, etc)
• Tertinggal (Ter+BW) = to (accidently) leave something behind
• Ditinggalkan (Di+BW+kan) = to be left behind; to be abandoned
• Selamat tinggal (BW + word) = goodbye (said to the person leaving)

Noun affixes are affixes that form nouns upon addition to root words. The following are examples of noun affixes:

(N) and (R) indicate that if a word begins with certain letters (most often vowels or consonants k, p, s, t), the letter will either be omitted or other letters will replace it, most commonly with the letters in the bracket or m, ng, ny and l.

Similarly, verb affixes are attached to root words to form verbs. In Indonesian, there are:

Adjective affixes are attached to root words to form adjectives:

In addition to these affixes, Indonesia language also has a lot of borrowed affixes from other languages such as Sanskrit, Arabic and English. For example maha-, juru-, pasca-, eka-, bi-, anti-, pro-, etc.

Compound words

In Indonesian, new words can be formed by joining two or more root words. Compound words, when they exist freely in a sentence, are often written separately. Compound words are only attached to each other when they are bound by a confix or when they are already considered as stable words.

For example, the word rumah which means house and makan which means eat, are compounded to form a new word rumah makan (restaurant). Similarly, ambil alih (take over) is formed using the root words ambil (take) and alih (move), but will link together when a circumfix is attached to it, i.e. pengambilalihan (takeover). Certain stable words, such as kakitangan (personel), and kerjasama (corporation), are spelled as one word even when they exist freely in sentences.

Grammatical gender

Indonesian does not make use of grammatical gender, and there are only a few words that use natural gender; the same word is used for he and she or for his and her. Most of the words that refer to people (family terms, professions, etc.) have a form that does not distinguish between the sexes. For example, adik can both refer to a younger sibling of either gender; no distinction is made between "girlfriend" and "boyfriend" (except in the more colloquial terms cewek (girl, girlfriend) and cowok (guy, boyfriend). In order to specify the natural gender of a noun, an adjective has to be added: adik laki-laki corresponds to "brother" but really means "male younger sibling". There are some words that are gendered, for instance putri means "daughter", and putra means "son"; words like these are usually absorbed from other languages (in these cases, from Sanskrit through the Old Javanese language). In Jakarta and some other areas, abang may be used for "older brother"; kakak, "older sibling", is then used to mean "older sister".

Measure words

Another distinguishing feature of Indonesian language is its use of measure words. In this way, it is similar to many other languages of Asia, including Chinese, Vietnamese, Burmese, and Bengali.

Examples of these measure words are: ekor (used for animals), buah (generalized used for a non living noun), orang (used for people), lembar (used for paper), biji (used for round and tiny things), batang (used for stick-like objects), etc. Though these measure words might not be used in the informal conversation.

Negation

There are three major forms of negation used in the Indonesian language, namely tidak, bukan and belum.

• Tidak (sometimes shortened to tak) is used for the negation of a verb and adjective.

For example: "saya tidak tahu" = I do not know OR "Ibu saya tidak senang" = My mother is not happy

• Bukan is used in the negation of a noun.

For example: "Itu bukan seekor anjing" = That is not a dog

• Belum is primarily used to negate a sentence or phrase with the sense that something has not yet been completed or experienced. In this sense,belum can also be used as a negative response to a question.

For example: "Anda sudah pernah ke Indonesia (belum)? "Belum, saya masih belum pernah pergi ke Indonesia" = Have you ever been to Indonesia before, (or not)? No, I have not yet been to Indonesia OR "Orang itu belum terbiasa tinggal di Indonesia" = That person is not (yet) used to living in Indonesia.

NB: Another kind of negation is with the word jangan, which equates to to English equivalent of "Don't" or "Do not". Jangan is used for negating imperatives or advising against certain actions. For example "Jangan tinggalkan saya" = 'Don't leave me.'

Pluralization

Plurals are expressed by means of reduplication, but only when the plural is not implied in the context. Thus "person" is orang, and "people" is orang-orang, but "one thousand people" is seribu orang, as the numeral makes it unnecessary to mark the plural form. Besides expressing plurals, reduplication can also be used to create new words that differ in meaning before reduplication takes place, for instance hati means "heart" or "liver" (depending on context) whereas hati-hati means "to be careful" and it is often used as a verb. For foreigners who are learning Indonesian, reduplication is not as easy as it seems to be because one can say orang ("person"), orang-orang ("people"), or orang-orangan ("scarecrow"). Not all reduplicated words can also have the plural meaning of a noun, for example: biri-biri (sheep), kupu-kupu (butterfly) can have both the singular or the plural meaning, depending on the context or the numeral added.

Pronouns

There are two forms of "we", kami or kita, depending on whether the speaker includes the person being talked to. Kami (exclusive) is used when the person or people being spoken to are not included, while kita (inclusive) includes the opposite party. Their usage is increasingly confused in colloquial Indonesian. There are two major forms of "I", which are saya and aku. Despite having the same meaning, saya is definitely the more formal form, whereas Aku is used often used with family, friends and between lovers. There are three common forms of "you", which are kamu, Anda and kalian. Anda is the more polite form of "you" and used in conversations toward someone you barely know or to whom you wish to respect. Kalian is the common plural form of "you" and is often said to be slightly informal.

NB: Because of the overall structure of Indonesian society (and influences from regional dialects) many different pronouns exist. Some of these 'additional pronouns' may show utmost politeness and respect (eg. Saudara/Saudari = you (male/female)), may be used only in the most informal of situations (eg. gua/ lu = me/ you - see Indonesian slang), or may have somewhat romantic or poetic qualities (eg. Daku/Dikau = me/you).

Common Indonesian Pronouns

Possessive pronouns

Demonstrative pronouns

There are two kinds of demonstrative pronouns in the Indonesian language. Ini (this, these) is used for a noun which is near to the speaker. Itu (that, those) is used for a noun which is far from the speaker. There is no difference in the use between the singular form and the plural form.

Verbs

Verbs are not inflected for person or number, and they are not marked for tense; tense is instead denoted by time adverbs (such as "yesterday") or by other tense indicators, such as sudah, "already". On the other hand, there is a complex system of verb affixes to render nuances of meaning and denote active-passive voices. Such affixes include prefixes, infixes, suffixes, and their combinations; all of which are often ignored in informal conversations.

Word order

The basic word order is Subject Verb Object. However many Indonesians will speak in a passive voice with a OV(S) word order. This often allows for the ommission of the subject from a sentence, This can either benefit the speaker/ writer by adding politeness and respect to a sentence or can be conveniently used when the subject is unknown. Adjectives, demonstrative pronouns and possessive pronouns follow the noun they describe.

Emphasis

Although the basic word order is Subject Verb Object, as mentioned above, it is possible to make frequent use of passive voice or to scramble word order, thus adding emphasis on a certain sentence particle. The particle being emphasized is usually placed at the beginning of the sentence. In spoken Indonesian, the aspect of the sentence being emphasized is usually followed by a short pause before continuing on with the remainder of the sentence.

Some examples include:

• Saya pergi ke pasar kemarin "I went to the market yesterday" — neutral, or with emphasis on the subject.
• Kemarin saya pergi ke pasar "Yesterday I went to the market" — emphasis on yesterday.
• Ke pasar saya pergi, kemarin "To the market I went yesterday" — emphasis on where I went yesterday.
• Pergi ke pasar, saya, kemarin "Went to the market I yesterday" — emphasis on the process of going to the market.

Vocabulary

Indonesian as a modern dialect of Malay has borrowed heavily from many languages, including : Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Portuguese, Dutch, Chinese and many other languages, including other Austronesian languages. It is estimated that there are some 750 Sanskrit loanwords in modern Indonesian, 1,000 Arabic loans, some Persian and Hebrew ones, some 125 Portuguese (also Spanish and Italian) ones and a staggering number of some 10,000 loanwords from Dutch.^[6] The latter also comprises many words from other European languages, which came via Dutch, the so-called "International Vocabulary". The vast majority of Indonesian words, however, come from the root lexical stock of its Austronesian heritage.

Although Hinduism and Buddhism are no longer the major religions of Indonesia, Sanskrit which was the language vehicle for these religions, is still held in high esteem and is comparable with the status of Latin in English and other West European languages. Residents of Bali and Java tend to be particularly proud of the Hindu-Buddhist heritage. Sanskrit is also the main source for neologisms. These are usually formed from Sanskrit roots. The loanwords from Sanskrit cover many aspects of religion, art and everyday life. The Sanskrit influence came from contacts with India long ago before the time of Christ. The words are either directly borrowed from India or with the intermediary of the Old Javanese language. In the classical language of Java, Old Javanese, the number of Sanskrit loanwords is far greater. The Old Javanese — English dictionary by prof. P.J. Zoetmulder, S.J. (1982) contains no fewer than 25,500 entries. Almost half are Sanskrit loanwords. Unlike other loanwords, Sanskrit loanwords have entered the basic vocabulary of Indonesian, so by many these aren't felt as foreign anymore.

The loanwords from Arabic are mainly concerned with religion, in particular with Islam, as can be expected. Allah is the word for God even in Christian Bible translations. Many early Bible translators, when they came across some unusual Hebrew words or proper names, used the Arabic cognates. In the newer translations this practice is discontinued. They now turn to Greek names or use the original Hebrew Word. For example, the name Jesus was initially translated as 'Isa, but is now spelt as Yesus. Psalms used to be translated as Zabur, the Arabic name, but now it is called Mazmur which corresponds more with Hebrew.

Loanwords from Portuguese are common words, which were mainly connected with articles the early European traders and explorers brought to Southeast Asia. The Portuguese were among the first westerners to sail east to the "Spice Islands".

The Chinese loanwords are usually concerned with cuisine, trade or often just exclusively things Chinese. There is a considerable Chinese presence in the whole of Southeast Asia. According to the 2000 census, the relative number of people of Chinese descent in Indonesia is 0.9%, but this may be an underestimate.

The former colonial power, the Netherlands, left an impressive vocabulary. These Dutch loanwords, and also from other non Italo-Iberian, European languages loanwords which came via Dutch, cover all aspects of life. Some Dutch loanwords, having clusters of several consonants, pose difficulties to speakers of Indonesian. This problem is usually solved by insertion of the schwa. For example Dutch schroef ['sxruf] → sekrup [sə'krup].

As modern Indonesian draws many of its words from foreign sources, there are many synonyms. For example, Indonesian has three words for "book", i.e. pustaka (from Sanskrit), kitab (from Arabic) and buku (from Dutch). These words have, unsurprisingly, slightly different meanings. A pustaka is often connected with ancient wisdom or sometimes with esoteric knowledge. A derived form, perpustakaan means a library. A kitab is usually a religious scripture or a book containing moral guidances. The Indonesian words for the Bible are Alkitab and Injil, both directly derived from Arabic. The book containing the penal code is also called the kitab. Buku is the most common word for books.

In addition to those above, there are also direct borrowings from various languages in the world, such as "karaoke" from Japanese, and "modem" from English.

See also: List of borrowed words in Indonesian

Spoken & informal Indonesian

In very informal spoken Indonesian, various words are replaced with those of a less formal nature (e.g. tidak (no) is often replaced with the Javanese nggak whilst seperti (like, similar to) is often replaced with kayak (pronounced kai-yah)). As for pronunciation, the diphthongs ai and au on the end of base words are typically pronounced as /e/ and /o/. In informal writing the spelling of words is modified to reflect the actual pronunciation in a way that can be produced with less effort. E.g.: capai becomes cape or capek, pakai become pake, kalau becomes kalo.

In verbs, the prefix me- is often dropped, although an initial nasal consonant is usually retained. E.g.: mengangkat becomes ngangkat (the basic word is angkat). The suffixes -kan and -i are often replaced by -in. E.g.: mencarikan becomes nyariin, menuruti becomes nurutin. The latter grammatical aspect is one often closely related to Indonesian found in Jakarta and surrounding areas.

• For detailed information relating to spoken and informal Indonesian, please click this link to a full-length article about Indonesian slang language.

Writing system

Indonesian is written using the Latin alphabet. It is more phonetically consistent than many languages—the correspondence between sounds and their written forms is generally regular.

Consonants are represented in a way similar to Italian, although c is always /ʧ/ (like English "tch"), g is always /g/ ("hard") and j represents /ʤ/ as it does in English. In addition, ny represents the palatal nasal /ɲ/, ng is used for the velar nasal /ŋ/ (which can occur word-initially), sy for /ʃ/ (English "sh") and kh for the voiceless velar fricative /x/. Both /e/ and /ə/ are represented with an e.

One common source of confusion for foreign readers, particularly when reading place names, is the spelling changes in the language that have occurred since Indonesian independence. Commonly-used changes include:

The first of these changes (oe to u) occurred around the time of independence in 1947; all of the others were a part of an officially-mandated spelling reform in 1972. Some of the old spellings, which were more closely derived from the Dutch language, do survive in proper names; for example, the name of a former president of the Indonesia is still written Soeharto, and the central Java city of Yogyakarta is sometimes written Jogjakarta.

Idioms and Proverbs

Template:Wikiquote

Ada gula, Ada semut.

Lit. "Where there's sugar, there are ants". Equivalent to the English: "Where there are bees, there is honey" and "There's no smoke without fire".

References

1. ^ James Neil Sneddon. The Indonesian Language: Its History and Role in Modern Society. UNSW Press, 2004. Page 14."
2. ^ Barry Farber. How to Learn Any Language. New York: Citadel Press, 1991. Page 167-168, in "Farber's Language Reviews."
3. ^ James Neil Sneddon. The Indonesian Language: Its History and Role in Modern Society. UNSW Press, 2004. Page 14."
4. ^ James Neil Sneddon. The Indonesian Language: Its History and Role in Modern Society. UNSW Press, 2004. Page 16."
5. ^ Ricklefs, M.C. (1991). A History of Modern Indonesia Since c.1300, 2nd Edition. London: MacMillan, p.26. ISBN 0-333-57689-6. 
6. ^ This is a research led by Prof. Dr. J.W. de Vries of the University of Leiden in the Netherlands

See also

• Languages of Indonesia
• Common phrases in different languages
• Language families and languages
• Demographics of Indonesia
• Indonesian slang language
• Differences between Malay and Indonesian
• List of English words of Indonesian origin

Wikipedia information about Indonesian language This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Indonesian language". It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer). Help contribute to Americola and edit this article.