Indonesian language

Indonesian ( Bahasa Indonesia (help·info)) is the official national language of Indonesia. It is based on a version of Classical Malayof the Riau-Johor Sultanate^[1]. It was first declared the official language with the declaration of Indonesian independence in 1945, following the 1928 unifying-language declaration in the Indonesian Youth Pledge.

Almost all of Indonesia's 240 million inhabitants speak the language and it is one of the most spoken languages in the world.^[2]Most Indonesians, aside from speaking the national language, are fluent in another regional language or local dialect (examples include Minangkabau, varieties of Chinese, Sundanese, Javanese and Balinese) that are commonly used at home and within the local community. Most formal education, as well as nearly all national media and other forms of communication, are conducted in Indonesian. In East Timor, which was annexed as an Indonesian province from 1975 to 1999, the Indonesian language is recognised by the constitution as one of two working languages (the other is English, alongside the official languages of Tetum andPortuguese).

The Indonesian name for the language is Bahasa Indonesia (lit. "the language of Indonesia"). This term can sometimes also be found in written or spoken English. In addition, the language is sometimes referred to as "Bahasa" by English speakers, though this simply means "language" and thus is also not an official term for the Indonesian language.

History

Indonesian is a normative form of the Malay language, an Austronesian (or Malayo-Polynesian) language that has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries. It was elevated to the status of official language with the Indonesian declaration of independence in 1945, drawing inspiration from the Sumpah Pemuda (Youth's Oath) event in 1928.^[3]

The earliest known inscription in the Malay language dates back to the 7th century. Known as the Kedukan Bukit Inscription, it was discovered by the Dutchman M. Batenburg on 29 November 1920 at Kedukan Bukit, South Sumatra, on the banks of the River Tatang (a tributary of the River Musi). It is a small stone, 45 cm by 80 cm in size.

Because of its origins, Indonesian (in its most standard form) is mutually intelligible with the official Malaysian Malay. However, it does differ from Malaysian Malay in some aspects, with differences in pronunciation, diction, spelling, accent and vocabulary. The grammar of Indonesian language is slightly more complex than Malaysian Malay's. These differences are mainly due to the Dutch and Javanese influences on Indonesian, and the English influence on Malaysian Malay.

Whilst Indonesian is spoken as a mother tongue (first language) by only a small proportion of Indonesia's large population ^[4] (i.e. mainly those who reside within the vicinity of Jakarta), over 200 million people regularly make use of the national language—some with varying degrees of proficiency. In a nation that boasts more than 300 native languages and a vast array of ethnic groups, the use of standard Indonesian (as opposed to Indonesian slang or regional dialects) is an essential^{[citation needed]} means of communication across the archipelago. Use of the national language is abundant in the media, government bodies, schools, universities, workplaces, amongst members of the Indonesian upper-class or nobility and also in many other formal situations.

The standard, correct version of the Indonesian language is rarely used in daily communication. Standard Indonesian may be found in books and newspapers, or on television/radio news broadcasts, but few native Indonesian speakers use completely formally standard language in their daily conversations. While this is a phenomenon common to most languages in the world (for example, spoken English does not always correspond to written or prescriptive standards), the degree of compliance of spoken Indonesian, in grammar and vocabulary, with the written form of standard Indonesian is noticeably low. This is mostly due to the fact that most Indonesians tend to combine certain aspects of their own local languages (e.g. Javanese,Sundanese, Balinese, and even Chinese dialects, particularly Hokkien) with Indonesian. The result is the creation of various types of regional Indonesian dialects. This phenomenon is exacerbated by the use of Indonesian slang, particularly in the cities. A classic example of a speaker of accented Indonesian is former president Suharto, whose Javanese accent came through whenever he delivered a speech.

The Dutch colonization left an imprint on the Indonesian language that can be seen in words such as polisi (police), kualitas/kwaliteit (quality), wortel (carrot), kamar (room, chamber),rokok (cigarette), korupsi (corruption), persneling (gear), kantor (office), and resleting (zipper). Alongside Malay, Portuguese was the lingua franca for trade throughout the archipelago from the sixteenth century through to the early nineteenth century. Indonesian words derived from Portuguese include sabun (sabão, soap), meja (mesa, table), boneka (boneca, doll), jendela(janela, window), gereja (igreja, church), bendera (bandeira, flag) and Minggu (from domingo = Sunday).^[5] Some of the many words of Chinese origin (with Hokkien/Mandarin pronunciations) include pisau (匕首 bǐshǒu - knife), loteng, (樓/層 = lóu/céng - [upper] floor/ level), mie (麵/miàn - noodles), lumpia (潤餅 (Hokkien = lūn-piáⁿ) - springroll), cawan, (茶碗 cháwǎn - teacup),teko (茶壺, teh-ko [Hokkien] = teapot) and even the widely used slang terms gua and lu (from the Hokkien 'goa' 我 and 'lu' 汝 - meaning 'I/ me' and 'you'). From Sanskrit came words such as kaca (glass, mirror), raja (king), manusia (mankind) b(h)umi (earth) and agama (religion). Words of Arabic origin include k(h)abar (أَخْبار, news), selamat/ salam (a greeting), dunia (دنيا, world), and kamus (قاموس, dictionary). There are also words derived from Javanese, e.g. aku (meaning I/ me (informal) and its derivative form, mengaku (to admit or confess). Through earlier influence of South Indian Tamil Chola empire that ruled over the region, many Tamil and Sanskrit words may be found in Indonesian such as kapal (ship in Tamil), kolam (lake in Tamil) and kedai (shop in Tamil).

[edit]Classification

The Malaysia language is part of the Western Malayo-Polynesian subgroup of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian languages. According to the Ethnologue, Indonesian is modelled after Riau Malay, a form of Old Malay originally spoken in Northeast Sumatra.^[6]

[edit

Geographic distribution

The language is spoken throughout Indonesia (and East Timor), although it is used most extensively as a first language in urban areas and usually as a second or third language in more rural parts of Indonesia. It is spoken by an additional 1.5+ million people worldwide, particularly in the Netherlands, the Philippines, and Malaysia. Finally, it is used daily in some parts ofAustralia (mostly on Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Islands ), Brunei, Singapore, some parts of Thailand ( Southern Thailand ), East Timor, Saudi Arabia, Suriname, New Caledonia, and the United States.^[7]

Vocabulary

Indonesian as a modern dialect of Malay has borrowed heavily from many languages, including: Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Portuguese, Dutch, Chinese and many other languages, including other Austronesian languages. It is estimated that there are some 7500 Sanskrit loanwords in modern Indonesian, 1,000 Arabic loans, some of Persian and Hebrew origin, some 125 words of Portuguese (also Spanish and Italian) origin and a staggering number of some 1,000 loan words from Dutch.^[10] The latter also comprises many words from other European languages, which came via Dutch, the so-called International Vocabulary. The vast majority of Indonesian words, however, come from the root lexical stock of its Austronesian (incl. Old Malay) heritage.

Although Hinduism and Buddhism are no longer the major religions of Indonesia, Sanskrit, which was the language vehicle for these religions, is still held in high esteem and is comparable with the status of Latin in English and other Western European languages. Residents of Bali and Java tend to be particularly proud of the Hindu-Buddhist heritage. Sanskrit is also the main source for neologisms. These are usually formed from Sanskrit roots. The loanwords from Sanskrit cover many aspects of religion, art and everyday life. The Sanskrit influence came from contacts with India long ago before the Common Era. The words are either directly borrowed from India or with the intermediary of the Old Javanese language. In the classical language of Java, Old Javanese, the number of Sanskrit loanwords is far greater. The Old Javanese—English dictionary by prof. P.J. Zoetmulder, S.J. (1982) contains no fewer than 25,500 entries. Almost half are Sanskrit loan words. The loan words from Arabic are mainly concerned with religion, in particular with Islam, as can be expected. Allah is the word for God even in ChristianBible translations. Many early Bible translators, when they came across some unusual Hebrew words or proper names, used the Arabic cognates. In the newer translations, this practice is discontinued. They now turn to Greek names or use the original Hebrew Word. For example, the name Jesus was initially translated as 'Isa for God in Sanskrit, but is now spelt as Yesus.Psalms used to be translated as Zabur, the Arabic name, but now it is called Mazmur, which corresponds more with Hebrew.

Loan words from Portuguese are common words, which were mainly connected with articles the early European traders and explorers brought to Southeast Asia. The Portuguese were among the first westerners to sail east to the "Spice Islands".

The Chinese loanwords are usually concerned with cuisine, trade or often just exclusively things Chinese. There is a considerable Chinese presence in the whole of Southeast Asia. According to the 2000 census, the relative number of people of Chinese descent in Indonesia is almost 1%, although this may likely be underestimated.

The former colonial power, the Netherlands, left an impressive vocabulary. These Dutch loan words, and also from other non Italo-Iberian, European languages loanwords that came via Dutch, cover all aspects of life. Some Dutch loan words, having clusters of several consonants, pose difficulties to speakers of Indonesian. This problem is usually solved by insertion of theschwa. For example Dutch schroef [ˈsxruf] → sekrup [səˈkrup].

As modern Indonesian draws many of its words from foreign sources, there are many synonyms, much like modern English. For example, Indonesian has three words for "book", i.e.pustaka (from Sanskrit), kitab (from Arabic) and buku (from Dutch). These words have, unsurprisingly, slightly different meanings. A pustaka is often connected with ancient wisdom, divine knowledge or sometimes with esoteric knowledge. A derived form, perpustakaan means a library. A kitab is usually a religious scripture or a book containing moral guidances. The Indonesian words for the Bible are Alkitab and Injil, both directly derived from Arabic. The book containing the penal code is also called the kitab. Buku, from Dutch, is also a common word for books.

In addition to those above (and the borrowed words listed under the sub-heading History towards the top of this article), there are also direct borrowings from various other languages of the world, such as "karaoke" from Japanese, and "modem" from English.

Spoken & informal Indonesian

Further information: Indonesian slang language

In very informal spoken Indonesian, various words are replaced with those of a less formal nature (e.g. tidak (no) is often replaced with the Betawi language's nggak whilst seperti (like, similar to) is often replaced with kayak (pronounced kaya)). As for pronunciation, the diphthongs ai and au on the end of base words are typically pronounced /e/ and /o/. In informal writing the spelling of words is modified to reflect the actual pronunciation in a way that can be produced with less effort. E.g.: capai becomes cape or capek, pakai become pake, kalau becomeskalo.

In verbs, the prefix me- is often dropped, although an initial nasal consonant is usually retained. E.g.: mengangkat becomes ngangkat (the basic word is angkat). The suffixes -kan and -iare often replaced by -in. E.g.: mencarikan becomes nyariin, menuruti becomes nurutin. The latter grammatical aspect is one often closely related to Indonesian found in Jakarta and surrounding areas.

read more at:  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_language

Malaysian Name

Personal names in Malaysia strictly define a person's cultural background as Malaysia comprises many cultures and races, and each has a distinctive system of naming. Personal names are somewhat restricted by government administration, especially since the introduction of the MyKad identity card. Malaysian Chinese are the only major ethnic group in Malaysiato use family names. Most other groups, including the dominant Malays, use a personal name followed by a patronym.

Malay names

Malay names are often drawn from Arabic and follow some Arabic naming customs, although some names have Malay, Javanese or Sanskrit origin. A Malay's name consists of a personal name, which is used to address him or her in all circumstances, followed by a patronym. Most Malays do not use family names. For men, the patronym consists of the word bin (from Arabic بن, meaning 'son of') followed by his father's personal name. Thus, if Osman has a son called Musa, Musa will be known as Musa bin Osman. For women, the patronym consists of the word binti (from Arabic بنت, meaning 'daughter of') followed by her father's name. Thus, if Musa has a daughter called Aisyah, Aisyah will be known as Aisyah binti Musa. Upon marriage, a woman does not change her name, as is done in some cultures.

Sometimes the first part of the patronym, bin or binti, is reduced to B. for men, or to Bt., Bte. or Bint. for women. This sometimes leads to it being taken as a middle initial in Western cultures. In general practice, however, most Malays omit the word bin or bint from their names. Thus, the two examples from the paragraph above would be known as Musa Osman and Aisyah Musa. When presented in this way, the second part of the name is often mistaken for a family name. However, when someone is referred to using only one name, the first name is always used, never the second (because you would be calling someone by his or her father's name). Thus, Musa Osman is Mr Musa (or Encik Musa in Malay), and Aisyah Musa is Mrs/Ms/Miss Aisyah (or Puan/Cik Aisyah in Malay).

A few Malay families do use surnames, such as Merican, which are passed down patrilineally, and usually indicate an Arab or Indian Muslim ancestor. Hence, if Musa's full name is Musa Merican, his daughter would be Aisyah Merican or Aisyah Musa Merican. The former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Abdullah bin Haji Ahmad Badawi (or, more simply, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi), has the Arab surname Badawi.

[edit]Addenda to names

Often the straightforward system of naming among Malays is complicated by addenda. This is where a double name is used in place of one. The addendum is always the first part of such double names. Addenda are easily spotted as they are drawn from a restricted pool of possible names. These addenda rarely form a complete name on their own, but are almost always followed by another personal name.

The popular addenda in the Malay male names are:

• Muhammad / Mohammad / Mohammed (often abbreviated to Mohd., Muhd., Md. or simply M.)
• Mat (the Malay variant of Muhammad. Mat is also the casual spoken form of names ending with -mad or -mat such as Ahmad, Rahmat, Samad, etc.)
• Ahmad
• Abdul (as in Arabic, Abdul is not a complete name in itself, but, meaning 'servant of', must be followed by one of the Names of God in the Qur'an; for example, Abdul Haqq — 'servant of the Truth')

The most common addenda in the Malay female names are:

• Nor / Noor / Nur / Nurul
• Siti

Thus, Osman may have another son called Abdul Haqq, who is known as Abdul Haqq bin Osman, or Abdul Haqq Osman. Then he, in turn, may have a daughter called Nor Mawar, who is known as Nor Mawar binti Abdul Haqq, or Nor Mawar Abdul Haqq.

If someone has been on the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, they may be called Haji. Thus, if Musa bin Osman went on the Hajj, he could be called Haji Musa bin Osman, and his daughter Aisyah might be called Aisyah binti Haji Musa.

Some addenda are inherited Malay titles (from the paternal side of the family). These exclusively involve the aristocrats, or even the royals, and their descendants. However, some families have these addenda even though they may not be royals or aristocrats.

The examples of inherited addenda are:

• Raja
• Tengku
• Wan
• Nik
• Che
• Tuan
• Syed / Sharifah (for male and female, respectively)
• Meor
• Megat / Puteri (for male and female, respectively)
• Awang (Abang) / Dayang (popular in Sarawak, for male and female, respectively)

For example, the current Prime Minister of Malaysia has the full name Dato' Seri Mohd Najib bin Tun Haji Abdul Razak, where 'Dato' Seri' is a Malay title of honour, 'Mohd Najib' is his personal name (often further abbreviated to 'Najib'), 'bin' introduces his father's titles and names, 'Tun' is a higher honour, 'Haji' denotes his father as a pilgrim to Mecca, and 'Abdul Razak' is his father's personal name (often abbreviated to 'Razak'). The entire name has various shorter forms, like 'Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak', 'Najib Tun Razak' and 'Najib Razak').

[edit]Arguments to definition

It has been argued^[where?] before that although many Malaysians categorize the naming conventions in Malaysia, particularly among Peninsular Malaysians, by their 3 major ethnic groups (Malay, Chinese and Indian), it is false to consider Arabic names as being Malay names. The Malay moslem majority takes on Arabic names in the spirit of their religion.

It has been reported^[where?] that true malay names do exist but has largely been forgotten. Examples of them however are evident in old films depicting pre-modern civilisation and old literature from those times.^{[dubious – discuss]}

Some that may be considered as true malay names are Kasturi, Melor, Kemboja, Cempaka, Bawang, Pandir, Tuah, Jebat, Lekir, Badang and perhaps even Puteri. Many of these names do come from Malay language vocabulary like the names of flowers but some however, may not be represented in the language.^{[citation needed]}

Proponents^[who?] argue that if Arabic names continue to be confused as Malay names and no further historical research is done, true Malay names would become extinct and forgotten by future generations.

[edit]Chinese names

Traditional Chinese names are used among Malaysian Chinese. These names are usually represented as three words, for example Foo Li Leen or Tan Ai Lin. The first name is the Chinese family name, which is passed down from a father to all his children. The two other parts of the name form an indivisible Chinese given name, which may contain a generation name. In Western settings, the family name is sometimes shifted to the end of the name (for example, Li Leen Foo).

Some Chinese also take a Western personal name (for example, Denise Foo), and some use this in preference to a Chinese given name and most of these are used by Chinese Malaysian Christians. On official documents, this name is either written in the order Western name - Surname - Chinese given name (e.g. Denise Foo Li Leen), or Surname - Chinese name - Western name (e.g. Foo Li Leen Denise), or Western name - Chinese name - Surname (e.g. Denise Li Leen Foo). In general practice, only either the Western name or the Chinese name will be used. For the Chinese Malaysian Muslims, they even use Arabic given names while some use Arabic-derived Chinese names.

[edit]Indian names

Officially, Malaysian Indians use a patronymic naming system combining their traditional Indian names with some Malay words, while others use Sanskrit names. A man's name would consist of his personal name followed by the Malay phrase anak lelaki, meaning 'son of', and then his father's name. A woman's name would consist of her personal name followed by the Malay phrase anak perempuan, meaning 'daughter of', and then her father's name. The Malay patronymic phrase is often abbreviated to a/l ('son of') or a/p ('daughter of') and then their father's name. In many circumstances, the intervening Malay is omitted, and the father's name follows immediately after a person's given name. Following traditional practice from South India, the father's name is sometimes abbreviated to an initial and placed before the personal name. Thus, a man called Anbuselvan whose father is called Ramanan may be called Anbuselvan anak lelaki Ramanan (formal), Anbuselvan a/l Ramanan (as on his government identification card), Anbuselvan Ramanan or R. Anbuselvan. Whereas, his daughter Mathuram would be called Mathuram anak perempuan Anbuselvan (formal), Mathuram a/p Anbuselvan (as on her government identification card), Mathuram Anbuselvan or A. Mathuram. Although not recorded officially, an Indian woman may use her husband's personal name instead of her father's name after marriage.

For the Indian Malaysian Muslims, like ethnic Malays, they use Arabic names or names of their own languages, while Arabic-derived Christian names for the Indian Malaysian Christians

[edit]Names of members of other groups

Orang Asli and other non-Malay bumiputra use the Malay word anak ('child of') to form their patronymics regardless of an individual's sex. For example, Aziz anak Ramlan.

Kristang people usually have Portuguese, or, at least, more European-sounding names, including inherited family names. In fact, Arabs and Portuguese have common denominator in influence in names: Fatima, Omar, and Soraya. These names are common in Portugal given by Arab influence.

read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysian_names

Philippine name

In the Philippines, Filipinos follow the conventional American form: Given name-Middle name-Family name. However, given that the Spanish system of naming was first introduced, most Filipinos still follow the older system to some degree. For the most part, most Filipinos do not have middle names in the North American sense but, rather, adopted the dual first name-last name Spanish system. An example would be John Paul Reyes y Mercado becoming John Paul Mercado Reyes. The "y" is dropped and the father's last name moved to the appropriate part of the full name. The mother's last name is then used as a middle name. It is surmised that this was done to preserve the mother's maiden name. It must be remembered though that the middle name in its natural sense would have been the second name if the person had one. John Paul would simply become John Paul Reyes or John Reyes if he did not have a second name to begin with. The construct of having several names in the middle name convention is common to all systems however.

Almost all Filipinos have Spanish or Spanish-sounding surnames, imposed on them for taxing reasons (See: Alphabetical Catalog of Surnames) and a number of them have indigenous Filipino surnames. The newer generation of Filipinos, for the most part, now have English Christian first names, but some still have Spanish or indigenous Filipino names. Most of the newer generation have English Christian names because most Filipinos never speak Spanish. Derivatives are also common but these have no formal indigenous sources. For example, a man named Rafael (Spanish name) would be given a Filipino nickname of Paeng, coming from a local rendering of the last two syllables of Rafael.

Many modern-day Chinese Filipinos have traditional last names with one syllable like Lim, Tan, and Sy. However, early Chinese Filipino families took on the complete name of their patriarch, thus their names had three syllables. These were adopted into the mainstream Filipino surnames and don't exist anywhere else in the world. Their names were transcribed using Spanish orthography in effect during the 19th century.

Of particular interest is the convention of Chinese surnames ending in -co or -ko. This is an honorific in the Chinese language retained in the surname. However, it must be remembered that "co" by itself is also a valid surname. In general, if it is at the end it is an honorific. An example of this is Cojuangco. Their patriarch was Co Chi Kuan, who was addressed respectfully as Co Kuan Co (one given name dropped). Co Kuan Co eventually became Cojuangco to better adapt to the social norms dictated in the Spanish era.

The use of Arabic names is prominent among the Filipino Muslims. They are Islamic influence from Arabs, Persians, Malays, Indonesians, and Indian Muslims. Both Arabs and Spaniards gave names in common: Fatima, Omar, and Soraya. This is because these names are common in Spain by Arab influence.

The Spanish surname category provides the most common surnames in the Philippines. These include García, (de la) Cruz, (de los) Reyes, (de los) Santos, González/Gonzales, andLópez.^[1]

read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_name

Indonesian names

read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_names