The Language

Language

We decided to tackle the problem of the language head-on.  So we are here for Bahasa Indonesia lessons twice a day.  In the process of learning the language, we are also learning about the rasa, an almost untranslatable word that means “feeling,” “true self,” or even essence of the people.  For example, we have learned from one of our two excellent tutors that the people of Indonesia prefer using the passive voice to hide themselves behind the subject they are speaking of.  I am sure this goes back to centuries of non-individualism, to a more obeisant way of being in a world of superiors such as the sultans.  They speak indirectly and we must learn to catch this indirection.  We have already learned that Indonesians do not accept food or drink the first (or even second) time it is offered, and we must be more persistent in making our offer.  We also are finding out how words are made, by adding more and more prefixes and suffixes to root words.  The grammar is not hard because there are no tenses, but the words themselves can be tongue-twisters that are impossible to hear in everyday speech.  We are trying though!  

  There is the added problem of not one language but many.  In everyday speech among friends, we often hear they are speaking "Javanese," which is more comfortable but among those higher up and those who are employed by them, it is Indonesian, a language created from "Malay" and related to several other "Austronesian" languages around the Pacific.  Our motivation in learning had to be ginned up simply because this language is unrelated to anything we have learned before.  In many ways, it is a simple language of a more simple, less complex civilization, like forming the plural by saying the word twice.  Thus. "laki-laki" for boys.  I really like how I can speak about my grandsons; they are "cucu laki-laki."  Doesn't that sound sweet?