A Note on Language.

Because it doesn't really fit in with the rest of my real email, so it will go here:

One of Indonesian's great ironies is that, as a language, it is built to be succinct and snappy—whole phrases fit in one verb (membonceng: to ride with someone else on a 2-wheeled vehicle), one adjective can cover an entire state of situation (ngeres: unpleasant or irritating sensation due to sand or dust), etc—but most often takes twice as long to say half as much when compared to the English. This is quite obvious when seen in familiar writings, i.e. scripture and hymns, where chapters take up extra pages and verses meanings are shortchanged due to music meter and Indonesian's syllabic space. But what really kills me is the jump to speaking the language, where more often than not the point of an entire conversation is lost due to absence of articles, the lack of "to be" in their verb dictionary, and the ambiguous 3rd person singular. Indonesians have to repeat themselves a lot* which, again, kind of defeats the whole purpose of shortening sentences and cutting out words in the first place. This can, of course, be frustrating, but has been good practice too, since I can focus on different ways to say one thing while they re-explain something I understood the first time through.

Still. I've always been a fan of evocatively precise explanation, so sometimes Indo hurts my soul.

Okay. Onward.

E

*Originally I suspected this was my own fault, that I just wasn't understanding because of my own language skills and so they were being helpful and saying it all over again. Nope.