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Indonesian language | ||
Tags: Indonesian | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Collaborative writing |  | |
| nafas Newbie Australia Joined 6555 days ago 8 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English* | Message 17 of 33 06 June 2006 at 9:20am | IP Logged | ||
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sayariza, and of course any other willing soul,
"kinerja" "gotong-royong" Could you explain the meaning of these words? Thanks. I know what the dictionary means. I'm looking for a "cultural" understanding of the words. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| That_Guy Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6886 days ago 74 posts - 87 votes  Studies: Hindi, English*, Spanish | Message 18 of 33 06 June 2006 at 11:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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I had some time on my hands so I decide to take what others had written and create somewhat of a "final draft".
Indonesian (and the closely related Malay language) is an Austronesian language spoken by approximately 240 million people. The majority of speakers are located primarily in Indonesia (210 million) and Malaysia (26 million), but with large numbers of speakers in Singapore (600,000), Brunei (350,000), Thailand (2.6 million), East Timor (200,000-350,000) and South Africa (200,000 -300,000). Studying Indonesian can give you a head start when learning Malay. Most Indonesians outside of the large cities do not speak English; therefore, an understanding of Indonesian is crucial if you plan on visiting Chic Factor As a foreigner speaking Indonesian, you’ll certainly attract a lot of attention. Most people who do not know Indonesian’s reputation as an “easy” language will certainly find the fact that you speak an Asian language (as most are thought to be notoriously difficult) quite impressive. Countries Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Thailand, East Timor, and South Africa. Speakers Only 24-40 million native speakers, but with an additional 200 million second language speakers, it brings the grand total around 240 million people. Economic Importance The economic importance of Indonesia most likely will not be the deciding factor in whether or not you learn the language. Most educated individuals in the business world speak English. Travel Opportunities Foreigners who can speak Indonesian can get easier to travel around. Although in the cities many highly educated people can speak English well, but in general most people speak bad or none English. People who live in isolated area as like in Papua, they do not know English, using Indonesian is your only one tool to communicate. Regional Variations There are many dialects, but all are mutually intelligible. Most natives will quickly realize that you don’t understand their native dialect and begin to speak in the formal Indonesian that’s taught in schools. Culture: There many different people, cultures, religions, and ethnicities spread out over the hundreds of islands. Each is fascinating and interesting in it’s own right. Although many minority groups have their own language everyone is taught a standard form of Indonesia, and will be able to communicate with you if you so choose. Difficulty This language deserves a rating of **, -quite easy to learn at least for people who do not speak a related English. Orthography is very simple (Indonesian uses the same 26 letters as English), and the phonetics is relatively easy. Pronunciation The pronunciation is relatively easy to master, with only a few sounds that might cause trouble. For example some consonants are not found in English, but hearing a recording or native speaker can clear that up quickly. Grammar Indonesian has extremely regular grammar rules! The main grammatical concepts can be learned within weeks. Verbs have no tenses (past, present, future) and do not inflect (change with person, number, gender), meaning they remain the same in all possible situations. For example the verb “to eat” stays the same regardless of whether you wish to say “I ate”, “I eat”, or “I will eat”. In place of tenses, time words are used (tomorrow, today, yesterday). Making words plural is also very easy; simply say the word twice! There are no grammatical cases or genders to worry about either. Vocabulary Although vocabulary presents probably the largest problem for English speakers learning the language, although there are certain words derived from Dutch (which is related to English). Transparency Indonesian is very closely related Malay, in fact some consider them dialects of the same language, although Indonesian has influence from Dutch and Malay has stronger influences from English (Indonesia was a Dutch colony for 400 years while Malaysia was an English colony) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sayariza Triglot Groupie Indonesia Joined 6551 days ago 42 posts - 54 votes Speaks: Malay, Indonesian*, DutchC1 Studies: EnglishC2 | Message 19 of 33 07 June 2006 at 7:21am | IP Logged | ||
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THank a lot for That Guy.
That is true that Indonesia was a Ducth colony for 350 years (not 400 years, but actually this 350 years was only in central Java, most region outside Java i.e in sumatera is only 50-60 years). About Dutch or English influence, Dutch influence is very minimum in last 40 years. English takes more control for this. In our law there are still some Duct word. Almost all Dutch words (not related to english) we used in the past are considered as obsolete or out of date (i.e klaar, milieu, PTT, etc) There are some loanwords those exist in Ducth but those words exists in English too. Edited by sayariza on 07 June 2006 at 8:37am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sayariza Triglot Groupie Indonesia Joined 6551 days ago 42 posts - 54 votes Speaks: Malay, Indonesian*, DutchC1 Studies: EnglishC2 | Message 20 of 33 07 June 2006 at 8:18am | IP Logged | ||
Kinerja This is a new word made by Pusat Bahasa to replace English word work performance. You can not find this word in the literatures before 1980-ies. The original word of this word "kinerja" is "kerja" (to do). Adding "in" in the middle of word is one creativity from guys of Pusat Bahasa. They take javanese word forming as a basic. In Javanese, word "tikung" (=bend or curve) is change first to telinkung and then to telingkung (ambush people from rear, catch his neck, bend him and make him powerless, it is used in Silat (Indonesian martial art)). see this picture: 
maybe that pecture can describe what word "telingkung means back to topic word "kinerja" is always a noun.It is never used as verb. Kinerja has broader meaning for some Indonesian , it does not tell about the result but about action. For example: Kinerja dari SBY (our president) sangat bagus. (=the work performance of SBY is very satisfied) this sentence tells about : what the results (more freedom than under Megawati, better economy) and how he reaches that result (make a new law, make a new policy). Kinerja is used to make evaluation, to tell how good a preformance of a machine or people example: mesin itu berkinerja baik meaning: mesin itu = that machine Berkinerja mean : "in fact that his kinerja..", berkinerja baik mean "in fact that his kinerja is good..". so completely has meaning: "that machine's performance is good or that machine has good performance" Kinerja is used very often in official ocument (i.e in Parlement) because this word has very strong meaning. When Gus Dur got impeachment from Parlement in 2002, parlement used word "kinerja". Parlement wanted to write in his official statement why they wanted to impeach Gus Dur: "Kinerja dari Gus Dur sangat mengecewakan" (the Gus Dur's work performance is vey dissapointed") It took almost 12 hours just only to debate this word. for some Javanese, Gus Dur's supporters, that sentence (with kinerja in it) is a humiliation. Then, believe or not[.b], that word was changed into "performance" after that there were not many rejections anymore. for Javanese: "Kinerja" coupled with positive words : (baik) good, (memuaskan) satisfied, (mengagumkan) awesome, (baik), etc implies high appreciation. to be continued : Gotong Royong Edited by sayariza on 07 June 2006 at 8:38am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nafas Newbie Australia Joined 6555 days ago 8 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English* | Message 21 of 33 07 June 2006 at 10:49am | IP Logged | ||
sayariza, I am very grateful, thank you. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sayariza Triglot Groupie Indonesia Joined 6551 days ago 42 posts - 54 votes Speaks: Malay, Indonesian*, DutchC1 Studies: EnglishC2 | Message 22 of 33 09 June 2006 at 8:39am | IP Logged | ||
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GOTONG ROYONG
efinition and meaning Gotong Royong, Indonesia's traditional system of reciprocal time exchange, is an ancient social structure that is still widespread in villages in Indonesia. "Gotong royong" is the concept of doing things together and helping each other in the spirit of goodwill. in this gotong royong the whole community or a group will assist a family to build a new home or building on their property. It can also be used to assist with planting, harvesting, security measure or other seasonal activities. Those that come are treated to a common mean, perhaps even entertainment. Many ancient buildings in Indonesia; Candi (temple i.e Borobudur), mosque (i.e Masjid Demak/ Demak mosque) were build through this way. People worked in that contruction together without get paid or get paid in minimum way. The most payback people got is recognizing that they are part of the group of society. Some people gor paid with rice. The concept "gotong royong" in Indonesia is needed because the big different between Indonesia and some other civilizations is that we never know slavery. Most of nation in the ancient time used slavery as labour to build i.e pyramide. (Offcourse we can not claim that we are the only one who never used slavery). Gotong royong is not only showed in a construction of building. "Ronda" or "siskamling" is a form of gotong royong too. Keep security together. In one village every adult has an obligation to do security job in his village. People on duty come to security post (pos ronda) and they wake up until sun rise. They walk arround in the region. Concept gotong royong in Indonesia is still exist.Only in big cities this system begins to fade. "I like if someone correct my english" Edited by sayariza on 09 June 2006 at 8:40am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ala Newbie Australia Joined 6541 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes | Message 23 of 33 10 June 2006 at 6:27am | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you very much Sayariza for explaining the above points concerning word stress etc. I was not aware of these facts and am very grateful that I now know! Your explanation seems to make much more sense so I assume that my teacher was in fact wrong :D
As I said you are a native speaker and as such are the authority - it is great to have a person like you on this forum to help out! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ctan Diglot Newbie Malaysia Joined 6145 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English*, Malay Studies: Mandarin, German | Message 24 of 33 30 June 2007 at 4:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for this section of Bahasa Indonesia, which sort of overlaps with Malay too (now changed from Bahasa Melayu to Bahasa Malaysia, in a bid to promote it as a national language).
I found it amazing that I couldn't understand anything that my Indonesian friends spoke, because Malay is like the formal and very stiff version of Indonesian. LOL. We say Isnin for Monday, and fikir instead of pikir (althoughhhhh Malays themselves probably use pikir - but I as a Malaysian-Chinese only converse in rather formal Malay, just short of bahasa baku!!). When I say "punya", it means "my/mine" (or rather a possessive indication) rather than "have". So: Saya punya anjing = My dog. Saya ada (seekor) anjing = I have a dog Beginners to the language may find the prefixes and suffixes to verbs difficult I think. I've tried explaining to friends about how to add ber-,ter-,men(g)-,-kan, and then i get pretty confused myself :p I am not comfortable reading in Malay, but it's always fun to yell " Makcik, nasi lemak bungkus, tambah sambal ya!" and go home with a nice packet of nasi lemak with super spicy sambal... yummm.... And i guess living overseas now, seeing a post like this gives me this warm feeling of home. Cheers! Edited by ctan on 30 June 2007 at 4:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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