LANGUAGE OF CONFLICT
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Consulting
    • Testimonials
  • About
  • Contact
    • Sarah Federman
    • Finish and Flourish
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Consulting
    • Testimonials
  • About
  • Contact
    • Sarah Federman
    • Finish and Flourish

 Bahasa Indonesia as "Fast Food" vs. Français "Aged to Perfection?"-- National Language Creation As Violence --

6/29/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
I have spent the last two weeks in Yogyakarta 8:30am-9:30am in a Bahasa Indonesia language class. This language has no gender, no conjugation and no past tense...you just add on "yesterday"-- Phrases are simple " Saya dari Amerika" (I from America) There is no "to be" there is no "être". The language is only hard to learn because there are so few cognates. You just have to memorize it. 

This language was "created" to help nationalize indonesia - bringing together islands that have well over 300 dialects. The whole creation of Indonesia was from what I am learning a Dutch construct, used to secure their trade and build the infamous Dutch East Indies Trade Company. After independence, the country had to figure out if it was a country at all but could not do that if they spoke different dialects. So this language was created. 

After spending 4 years living in French-- a language aged to perfection...filled with such wonderful ancient expressions, subtly and conundrums - I found indonesian a shock. You cannot learn the funny little idioms that tell you about a simpler time. Like when you're telling someone in France to mind their own business you can say "occupe toi de tes nignons" -- mind you own onions...or in other words "get back to your own garden" -- or if your business meeting goes off on a tangent you can say "revenons a nos moutons" -- let's return to our sheep. This to me is just delightful-- you can be talking about software development one second and then referring to your to-do list as Sheep. History, time, our relation to land --- all tied up in little phrases...

But if you pull those away and "construct" a  language to force people to come together, you rip them from their cultural roots. That perhaps is the goal-- your words now are truly determined by the state. They have ripped you from your past and given you their construction of the world to make it easier to control people. I have not yet done much research on Indonesia's official transition to a national language and how people feel about it, but were I to do another research project here, I would surely focus on this. 

English, while less romantic than our latin partners, at least has its charming old expressions "get into a pickle" or "whittle away the time"

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Afghanistan
    Bullying
    Communism
    Computer Crash
    Conflict Resolution
    Customer Service
    Documentary
    Foreign Policy
    Global Solutions
    Healing
    Indonesia
    Language
    Language Of Conflict
    Life Coaching
    Military History
    Narrative
    Police Brutality
    Political Debate
    Relationships
    Transparency
    World Healling

    Archives

    July 2019
    May 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    December 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    March 2012

Proudly powered by Weebly