On Translating Indonesia
George Quinn Head, Southeast Asia Centre, Faculty of Asian Studies Australian National University I still remember very vividly the moment I became hooked on the study of Indonesia and on the mystery of…
The miracle of Bahasa Indonesia and Arabic
It has always been the dream and wish of many Arabs that everyone should speak the same classical Arabic. Arabic dialects are considered by some Arab linguists to be a degenerate form of…
Using Indonesian Dictionary
Base forms are words that have affixes attached to them. Affixes are like pilot fish, they can’t swim about independently in the great ocean of language, but have to fasten themselves to the…
Western Loanwords in Indonesian
Indonesian has thousands of words that resemble English words. Lots of them serve an obvious purpose: they fill a gap in the vocabulary. Examples of these are pistol, helikopter, komputer. There was no word to…
Is Indonesian a non-sexist language?
The third-person pronouns of English compel us to specify male (he, his), female (she, her) or non-human (it, its). Similarly, when we are talking about relatives our language mostly uses terms like brother,…
Big Money
After the Second World War, Japan, Italy and several other countries were struck by raging inflation and the value of their currencies declined dramatically. We still feel the legacy of this today. Prices…
Thank You … Yes or No?
‘Apakah’ is a yes/no question word. If a Yes/No question has bisa or mau in it usually we answer the question in the affirmative by repeating the bisa ormau. This can be followed by terima kasih if…
Be Polite About Other People’s Body
Many Indonesians are sensitive about references to their bodies. It is not exactly impolite to talk about another person’s body, but you need to be cautious because the body is not usually a…
English is Changing The Grammar Of Indonesian
If words are flesh and grammar is bones, then the flesh of Indonesian has an unmistakable English flavour by now. What you might not know is that English is shaping the bones of…
Kopi for Coffee
Indonesia is famous for its tea and coffee. Picturesque tea plantations cover the hills in many parts of the country, particularly in West Java, and sipping glasses of tepid, very sweet tea is…
