Entry 8: I Said Yes, But I Mean’t No!

This week for my ENGL 512 class, we had a ‘workshop’ day where we met with our group partners wherever we liked. It does not have to be in class. So we did not have our usual class where we would have class discussions and activities. However, my group still decided to meet in the room during the time the class usually meets. On my way to the room, I met another classmate taking the same course. He saw me right before I got into the elevator to go to the third floor where the room was at. He asked me, “We don’t have a class today, right?” and I spontaneously said “Yes!”. That moment he looked so confused and looking at his reaction I suddenly realized my mistake. I quickly said, “I meant no! No, no!” and laughed. 

In this situation, the question was in the negative form. In Indonesian, if the response of a negative question is positive, the response would be “No”. If the response is a negative, it would be a “Yes”. To better illustrate this, below is an example question and the responses in Indonesian and English.

However, if the question is in the affirmative form, the response made in Indonesian is different.

As we can see, the response made by Indonesians depend on the form of the question. Additionally, the response and supplement to response is not equal or linear in Indonesian when the question is in negative form. This is similar to the analysis of Yes/No responses in Korean by Kim (1962).

References

Kim, S-H. P. (1962). The meaning of yes and no in English and Korean. Language Learning, 12(1), 27-45.

Entry 7: It’s Not Sejuk, It’s Dingin!

Many people say that Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian) and Bahasa Melayu (Malaysian) are the same. Even foreigners have a hard time distinguishing between the two. Indeed, both languages are in the same language family, namely the Austronesian family (Finegan, 2015). However, as an Indonesian speaker with Malaysian roommates, I can definitely perceive the difference. Mainly the differences are in vocabulary, but there are also pronunciation differences. The most recurring pronunciation difference that actually went to the point where I got really annoyed was Malaysians pronunciation of ‘a’ in final position as /ə/. In Indonesian, ‘a’ in final position is not pronounced as /ə/, but rather it is pronounced as /Ʌ/. For example, the same word ‘kenapa’ (why) is pronounced as /kənʌpʌ/ by Indonesians, but /kənʌpə/ by Malaysians. As for vocabulary, there are two stories that I would like to use to illustrate the difference between Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Melayu.

One day as I prepared to leave the apartment, my roommate approached me and told me that it will be very ‘sejuk’ that day. I looked at my clothes, a very thick coat with thermal underneath, and decided that if it will be ‘sejuk’ today, then I better change my clothes. Because ‘sejuk’ in Indonesian is ‘cool’, wearing those clothes felt too much. Hence, I changed my clothes and went out of the apartment. What a big surprise did I get when I got out! It was freezing cold! I would never have characterized it as ‘sejuk’. It was ‘dingin’! Or cold in English. I came back into the apartment and asked my roommate, “What did you mean by ‘sejuk’? It was ‘dingin’ out there, freezing cold!”. Then my roommate explained that ‘sejuk’ is cold in Malaysian. Since then we tried not to talk in Bahasa.

Another story was actually recounted by my lecturer back in Indonesia. He was a graduate student in Malaysia and so he had some Malaysian friends. It was a Friday and one of his friends came up to him to tell my lecturer that he will ‘jemput’ my lecturer to a party tomorrow night. In Indonesian, ‘jemput’ means to pick up. Naturally my lecturer waited for his friend to pick him up the next day. He waited, and waited, and waited. He tried calling his friend, but the call didn’t get through. He didn’t get to the party that night. When he met his friend in class, the friend was very mad at him and asked my lecturer in a very angry tone why he didn’t go to the party. He was so confused, he thought he was the one who was supposed to be angry! He then said, “I thought you were going to ‘jemput’ me?”. The friend said, “Yeah, I ‘jemput’ you to the party!”. My lecturer then realized that there must be some kind of misunderstanding. He eventually found out that ‘jemput’ in Malaysian means to invite, not to pick up.

Reference
Finegan, E. (2015). Language: Its structure and use (7th ed.). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.

Entry 5: Sundanese People Can Pronounce [f]!

Sundanese is one of the many ethnic groups in Indonesia. One of my friends at the English Department of Iowa State University is from Indonesia and she is Sundanese. Whenever I talk to her in Indonesian or English, I sometimes find her pronouncing the [f] or [v] sound as [p]. This is because in Sundanese language, there are no [f] and [v] sounds. I was then told by her, that the phonological transfer does not only occur in speech form, there are also examples of written transfer. Thus, for this entry, I browsed on Google to find some pictures showing examples of the written transfer. The examples that I found show the ‘perceived’ written form of Indonesian or English words by Sundanese people*. Based on the examples that I found, it is interesting to note that not only does the transfer occur from [f] to [p] or [v] to [p], but transfers also occurs from [p] to [f] and [v] to [f].

Below is a table showing the correct form of the words and its written ‘version’ according to Sundanese people.

Correct Form	Written ‘version’ according to Sundanese people	English Translation
Fitnah	Pitnah	Slander
Konferensi	Konperensi	Conference
Variasi	Pariasi	Variation
Berfoto-foto	Berpoto-poto	Taking pictures
Fly-over (Refers to the fly-over bridge)	Ply ofer	Fly-over bridge
Servis	Serpis	Service
Sofa	Sopa	Sofa
Power	Fower	Power
Lapor	Lafor	Report
Pelan-pelan	Felan-felan	Slowly

Based on the data above, the following transfers can be identified:

• [f] → [p]
• [p] → [f]
• [v] → [p]
• [v] → [f]

I then attempted to do a phonological analysis on the data to see whether or not there is a pattern for this phonological transfer. The following environments were identified:

Environments of the Phonological Transfers
[f] → [p]	[p] → [f]	[v] → [p]	[v] → [f]
initial position_V (in this case the vowel is [o])	initial position_V (in this case the vowel is [o] or [ə])	initial position_V (in this case the vowel is [Ʌ])	V_V (more specifically [o]_[Ʌ])
initial position_C (in this case the vowel is [l])	V_V (more specifically [Ʌ] _[o])	C_V (more specifically [r]_[ɪ])
C_V (more specifically [n]_[ə])
V_V (more specifically [o]_[Ʌ])

Based on the environment analysis, it is quite easy for me to assume that [f], [v], and [p] for Sundanese speakers of Indonesian are all allophones of the same phoneme which is /p/, and are in free variation according to the perception of the Sundanese people. However, due to very limited data, it would not be wise to make such an assumption. They may be allophones of the same phoneme considering the fact that Sundanese people use the sounds interchangeably and do not believe that a different word meaning is produced when doing so, but it does not mean that they are in free variation. Additionally, when the vowels and consonants in the environment are examined, there are several differences. For example in the [f] → [p], [p] → [f], and [v] → [p] transfers, all three occur in initial position_V. But when we look at the vowel there are differences, except with [p] → [f] which has two possible vowels in its environments. Nevertheless, it is highly possible that with a bigger data size, a pattern for phonological transfer made by Sundanese people could be identified.

*For the analysis, it important to have in mind that in Indonesian, the pronunciation of consonants follow its orthographic form. E.g. the letter s is always pronounced [s] and never as [z].

References

andrewhinata. (2013, July 8). Re: orang bandung / orang sunda masuk atau dari daerah lain jugaboleh masuk !! [Online forum comment]. http://www.kaskus.co.id/thread/51dae47b0975b42921000005/orang-bandung---orang-sunda-masuk-atau-dari-daerah-lain-juga-boleh-masuk/

Cuma urang-urang Sunda yang paham ragam kehidupan seperti ini!. Retrieved from http://www.explorejabar.com/2014/11/cuma-urang-urang-sunda-yang-paham-ragam.html

Risadi, A. A. (2013, February 26). Sunda: F/V/P(?). Kompasiana, Retrieved from http://www.kompasiana.com/arisahmadrisadi/sunda-f-v-p_552fe4ab6ea8340d608b457f

Entry 3: Unique Free and Bound Morphemes in the Indonesian-Makassarese Hybrid Dialect

Makassarese is one of the ethnic languages in the southern part of the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia. As an ethnic language, it is widely used in daily conversations in South Sulawesi. However, Indonesian, the official language also plays a big role as the ‘unifying’ language of roughly 350 ethnic groups in Indonesia (Winter, 2009). 

In Makassar, the capital city of South Sulawesi, and its surrounding areas, besides the ‘pure’ Makassarese and Indonesian languages an Indonesian-Makassarese hybrid dialect is also commonly used. I termed it hybrid as it is not fully Indonesian nor it is fully Makassarese. A unique phenomena within this dialect is the use of free and bound morphemes taken from Makassarese and attached to Indonesian words. This is also the type of dialect that I would use in my hometown which is an hour away from Makassar. I decided to analyze this topic as part of my language journal because of a recent Facebook post that my friend had posted. The post highlighted the free and bound morphemes that are most common in the Indonesian-Makassarese dialect. I remember when I was still an undergraduate student studying at a state university in Makassar, I had a classmate who was originally from Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital city. She had a hard time understanding the dialect that we used. Knowing Indonesian is not sufficient to understand this dialect.

Below is a table showing my analysis of the morphemes. In the analysis, I identified whether it is a bound or free morpheme and its function along with an example on how to use the morpheme when paired with in an Indonesian word. For this analysis, I chose the word ‘makan’ which means eat in English.

Morpheme	Free/Bound	Function	Example of Use
mi	Bound	to invite another person to participate in an action (strong)	Makanmi (Just eat it)
		to make a positive statement	-
pi	Bound	to indicate a specified time	Makanpi (When I eat)
ji	Bound	to question whether an action has been done	Makanji? (Did you eat?)
		to indicate that only a single action is conducted	Makanji (Only eating)
ki’	Bound	to invite another person to participate in an action	Makanki’ (Please eat)
		the polite form to address a person (pronoun)	-
ka’	Bound	to address oneself	Makanka’ (I am eating)
ma’	Bound	to indicate that an action is currently being conducted, assuming that the person uttering it was previously suggested to do the action by another person	Makanma’ (I’m eating now)
pa’	Bound	to indicate a specified time, similar to ‘pi’. However, ‘pa’’ is pronounced with a glottal stop at the end	Makanpa’ (When I eat)
ja’	Bound	to convince someone that an action is being or will be conducted	Makanja’ (I am eating)
ka’	Bound	to indicate that an action is currently being conducted (less marked compared to ‘ma’’)	Makanka’ (I’m eating now)
tong	Bound	to indicate that the person uttering it is participating in an action with another person(s)	Makantong (I’m eating too)
rong	Bound	to indicate that an activity needs to be done first	Makanrong (Let’s eat first)
mo	Bound	to indicate that an activity is preferred to be done over another activity (or activities)	Makanmo (Let’s just eat)
pade’	Free	when standing on its own, it means “OK”	-
		if it is attached to a word it has the same function as ‘mo’	Makanpade’ (Let’s just eat)
di’	Bound	to question whether the action is the one to be conducted	Makandi’? (We’re going to eat?)
ko	Bound	to suggest (very strongly) for someone to do something. Can be an order	Makanko (Just eat already/You have to eat)
na	Free	when standing on its own, it is used in question form to ‘nag’ someone to do something. Sometimes used repeatedly, e.g. na na na na	-
		if it is attached to a word, it functions to suggest for an action to be conducted (weak)	Makanna (Please eat)
gang	Free	when standing on its own, it means ‘stop it’ or ‘don’t do (something)’	-
		if it is attached to a word, it is used to indicate that an activity is currently conducted or had already been conducted, assuming that the person uttering it was accused of doing another activity instead	Makan gang (I am/was eating!)
sede’	Bound	to point out that an activity was conducted again	Makansede’ (You’re/I’m eating again)
lalo	Bound	to indicate that an activity should be conducted immediately or as soon as possible	Makanlalo (Eat right away)

As I did this analysis, I did not realize how complex the morphemes were. Each had their own situations in which they can only be used, even if there are some morphemes that could be used interchangeably in certain situations. I also realized that there are certain instances where two morphemes are attached to a single word. For example makanka’di’, which roughly means ‘I’m going to eat okay?’. The combination of the two bound morphemes resulted in quite a different meaning compared to when they are used separately.

References

Winter, G. (2009). Towards sustainable fisheries law: A comparative analysis. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN.