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Why standard Indonesian is not spoken throughout Indonesia

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Re: Why standard Indonesian is not spoken throughout Indonesia

#131

Post by jhbadger »

always_good wrote: post #55
enriquto wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, your description of the US culture is very scary. Like an exaggeratedly dystopian future. We have many problems in Europe, but this senseless uniformization is, by far, not as complete as it seems to be in the U.S.

The uniform experience of the US is why I roll my eyes at people who suggest "why would I travel elsewhere if I haven't even explored my own country?" As if seeing some new sights is the only rewarding aspect of being somewhere new rather than experiencing something truly different in life, like different culture, language, and way of life.

Although an awful lot of this difference is due to poverty and shouldn't be romanticized. I was recently in Cambodia and the new thing there is that they've recently gotten smartphones. Yes, some of the people I was with bemoaned this fact as it meant that things were becoming "less authentic", but the thing is, due to the lack of computers, the smartphone revolution is also the Internet revolution there. It is an wonderful thing from the Cambodian perspective.

Re: Why standard Indonesian is not spoken throughout Indonesia

#132

Post by perlancar3 »

decode wrote: post #76
iafisher wrote: post #3

Claims about the relative simplicity or complexity of different languages are rarely grounded in actual linguistic evidence. Languages comprise so many parts that it's not even clear what the basis of comparison could be: is English, a language with highly restricted word order but without grammatical case marked on most nouns, more complex than Russian, a language with comparatively free word order but a highly arti…

While I agree with you in general, a surprising number of grammatical features that make many other languages difficult to learn are missing in Indonesian. Some examples: No grammatical gender No plural forms of nouns No grammatical case No verb conjugations No verb tenses In addition, written Indonesian uses the Latin alphabet and has a very consistent phonemic orthography. Of course, it also has some more complicat…

Yup, typically what a native Indonesian would say about how easy their language is. But foreigners are often tripped with other aspects of the grammar, which the native take for granted, such as those tikwidd mentions: noun classifiers, morphological derivation, a high number of prefixes/suffixes/infixes and their combination, lack of cue on how to pronounce the different "e" vowels, etc.

Re: Why standard Indonesian is not spoken throughout Indonesia

#133

Post by perlancar3 »

bfred_it wrote: post #16
iafisher wrote: post #3

Claims about the relative simplicity or complexity of different languages are rarely grounded in actual linguistic evidence. Languages comprise so many parts that it's not even clear what the basis of comparison could be: is English, a language with highly restricted word order but without grammatical case marked on most nouns, more complex than Russian, a language with comparatively free word order but a highly arti…

Some languages are objectively easier than others, at least in part. Latin languages like Italian, Spanish and French have literally dozens of conjugations[0] where English usually handles all tenses and quantity with "will, would, did, had, -ed" plus a handful of irregular verbs, which themselves have two words to learn each (unlike Italian irregular verbs [1]) Spanish and Italian are only easier to read and write s…

By the way, how should one measure language difficulty objectively? I think one proxy can be: the number of years a non-native learner typically requires before reaching a certain level.

Re: Why standard Indonesian is not spoken throughout Indonesia

#134

Post by echaozh »

dmckeon wrote: post #11
shp0ngle wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Mandarin Chinese understood on all China, from Xinjiang to Canton?

Written, mostly, but spoken, not so much. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language

Well, isn't it a wonder more than a billion people can understand each other's writings even if they speak different dialects. To some extent, a Chinese and a Japanese can communicate with Hanzi/Kanji even if they don't understand the other language.

Re: Why standard Indonesian is not spoken throughout Indonesia

#135

Post by yorwba »

arghwhat wrote: post #75
nexus2045 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to this (as a Hong Kong native): Hong Kong is definitely a weird, special case, having belonged to Britain until 1997 and basically most people growing up there on some level despise the mainland, communism, and the language. To this day there's a certain level of disdain and judgment against you if you speak Mandarin there, almost like you're branded as "the others". It's also true that provinces with rich cu…

My wife is from Shanghai, but spent the later half of her life in Hong Kong, so she speaks Shanghainese, Cantonese, Mandarin, English fluently and now also Danish and Swedish intermediate. As I am Scandinavian, I am mostly just conveying her knowledge and my brief observations, all while she makes me feel horribly inadequate in the language department. I recall a trip to Shanghai a while back where my wife mentioned…

I've spent 2 years in Shanghai as an exchange student, and I think whether you get the impression that the "younger generation" no longer speaks Shanghainese depends a lot on whether you focus on people born in Shanghai to parents both speaking Shanghainese, or all inhabitants of Shanghai in that age group.

The former are likely to speak at least a little Shanghainese, but limited due to only using it at home and with some of their friends. The latter don't really have a need to learn Shanghainese, because Mandarin is the language used in school and for all kinds of business.

Personally, I only know one native Shanghainese speaker. Because my friends are university students from all over the country, the actual proportions are likely not as extreme, but I still think that Shanghainese speakers are a minority by now.

Re: Why standard Indonesian is not spoken throughout Indonesia

#136

Post by katet »

chewxy wrote: post #101

Anyone interested in conlangs would do well to study Malay. It is not a constructed language per se, but modern standard Malay (Bahasa baku) underwent a massively interesting standardization phase in the 60s which resulted in a fairly consistent language today. By contrast the standardization of Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia baku) looks comical. The rules of Indonesian are all over the place. Unfortunately in Malaysia…

As somebody learning Bahasa Malaysia (or Bahasa Melayu, or whatever it is now), do you have any references on this, particularly the standardisation part of Bahasa Baku? For example, I'd always assumed "lelaki" just meant "male", which probably means saying "dia lelaki" is a little bit off ;) (and is probably why I shouldn't pick up BM from street signs...)

Re: Why standard Indonesian is not spoken throughout Indonesia

#137

Post by chewxy »

katet wrote: post #136
chewxy wrote: post #101

Anyone interested in conlangs would do well to study Malay. It is not a constructed language per se, but modern standard Malay (Bahasa baku) underwent a massively interesting standardization phase in the 60s which resulted in a fairly consistent language today. By contrast the standardization of Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia baku) looks comical. The rules of Indonesian are all over the place. Unfortunately in Malaysia…

As somebody learning Bahasa Malaysia (or Bahasa Melayu, or whatever it is now), do you have any references on this, particularly the standardisation part of Bahasa Baku? For example, I'd always assumed "lelaki" just meant "male", which probably means saying "dia lelaki" is a little bit off ;) (and is probably why I shouldn't pick up BM from street signs...)

Dewan Bahasa Dan Pustaka. They have an awesome library in KL. I once spent a day in there when I was far younger than I am today. Ask for their reference section for the language.

Do note that modern BM doesn't have very many markers for plurality.

"Dia lelaki" is off mainly because it translates to "he male". "Seorang lelaki telah ..." translates to "one men already..." which is semantically equivalent to "one man already".

I found this: http://kembarabahasa.blogspot.com/ which is quite interesting to read. I also found the official reference of the Malaysian government: http://prpm.dbp.gov.my/

Re: Why standard Indonesian is not spoken throughout Indonesia

#138

Post by boundlessdreamz »

forapurpose wrote: post #86
vram22 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the Javanese in one village might not be mutually intelligible (in the practical sense, anyway) with the Javanese spoken in another village a few miles away. >The word "Bahasa" means "language", and in Indonesian languages always seemed to be prefixed with ""Bahasa", e.g. "bahasa Indonesia", "bahasa Inggris", "bahasa Jerman". It is probably derived from the Sanskrit word "bhaashaa" (writing it phonetically, if that…

I don't know much about Sanskrit's history, but the linguistic similarities don't infer its influence on SE Asian languages. The influence could have gone the other way, from SE Asia to India (really, to South Asia; modern India's borders are a 20th century innovation, and Sanskrit seems to originate in Punjab, straddling modern India and Pakistan[0]) - and probably the influence would have gone both ways. Also, a th…

The Tamil kings of India had great influence on SE Asia during the Chola period.(1,2) Sanskrit was certainly used in SE Asia(3). Mostly ceremonial like Latin and used only by the ruling class I think

1.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chola_invasion_of_Srivijaya

2. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chola_dynasty

3. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shailendra_dynasty -

Re: Why standard Indonesian is not spoken throughout Indonesia

#139

Post by ngc248 »

forapurpose wrote: post #86
vram22 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the Javanese in one village might not be mutually intelligible (in the practical sense, anyway) with the Javanese spoken in another village a few miles away. >The word "Bahasa" means "language", and in Indonesian languages always seemed to be prefixed with ""Bahasa", e.g. "bahasa Indonesia", "bahasa Inggris", "bahasa Jerman". It is probably derived from the Sanskrit word "bhaashaa" (writing it phonetically, if that…

I don't know much about Sanskrit's history, but the linguistic similarities don't infer its influence on SE Asian languages. The influence could have gone the other way, from SE Asia to India (really, to South Asia; modern India's borders are a 20th century innovation, and Sanskrit seems to originate in Punjab, straddling modern India and Pakistan[0]) - and probably the influence would have gone both ways. Also, a th…

No, the influence is from India to SE Asia. Most of the SE Asia kingdoms were hindu/buddhist kingdoms before they became islamic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_India

Re: Why standard Indonesian is not spoken throughout Indonesia

#140

Post by bodas »

Rapzid wrote: post #107
Apocryphon wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a huge country in terms of both population and land, and with abundant natural resources including oil. It's the largest Muslim nation in the world, and also has significant numbers of religious minorities. It's adjacent to many other eastern and southeastern Asian markets. There's definitely interest to be had there.

Largest Muslim-majority nation. However, they are on a frightening trajectory towards becoming a Muslim nation. Their democracy is on increasingly thinning ice.

It is democracy and free speech that is enabling Islamic politics in Indonesia. The alternative is a strongman who imposes secularism. Indonesia already tried that, it is not so good for minorities.
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