My Indonesian language skills fail me

[Puspawarna]

Over the years, I've become reasonably good, as a non-native speaker of Bahasa Indonesia, at sorting out the neologisms/portmanteaus that the Indonesian language is so marvelous at creating. Depnaker? Kemenkeu? Jaksel? Pfft! Give me something HARD to understand, those terms are easy to figure out after you've lived in Indonesia a while, and taken a reasonable interest in learning the language.

But the sad loss of flight JT 610 has introduced me to a term I could not have figured out on my own: Basarnas. I immediately understood that Ba = badan, and nas = nasional, but the "SAR" confounded me.

A quick internet search reveals that Basarnas is "Badan Pencarian dan Pertolongan Nasional."

Oh, come on. THAT'S NOT FAIR. The "sar" obviously stands for "search and rescue" (pencarian dan pertolongan).

Many years ago, when I started studying Indonesian in the US, my native Indonesian teachers who had lived in the United States for a number of years confided in me that, "Even as a native Indonesian speaker, I find it hard to understand all the new terms that are in the newspapers."

I understand the dismay of those expatriate Indonesians, and as a foreigner who lived until recently in Indonesia, I agree that sometimes it is nearly impossible to follow how fast the language changes.

 

[dafluff]

Huh....I always just assumed Basarnas stood for Badan SAR Nasional...haha. I think it may have been at one point, and then they Indonesianized it?

But yes, new official BI terms are always popping up, and it confuses native speakers also. One thing that I find funny is English words spelled in Indonesian, then becoming "officially" BI. Like Cekidot (check it out) or Pesbuker (Facebooker), etc...

 

[Nimbus]

Indonesians have always been quick to adopt foreign vocabulary, that's why the dictionary is full of words originated in Arabic, Hindi, Portuguese, Hakka, Dutch, and (now) English.

My problem is with newly invented Indonesian words, like surel. What on earth is a surel? It stands for surat elektronik. Well, why don't they just stick with email?

Other words:
- Tetikus (computer mouse)
- Unggah (upload)
- Unduh (download)
- Daring, dalam jaringan (online)
- Luring, luar jaringan (offline)
- Laman web (web page)
- Sangkil (efficient)
- Mangkus (effective)

The irony is that my friends in Jakarta tend to liberally sprinkle their Indonesian sentences with English words, sometimes more than I do.

 

[El_Goretto]

Cekidot

Oh I love that one!

 

[Wisnu]

This is the first time I know what is cekidot, although I eard it few occasions but didn't bother to ask.

The words unggah, unduh, sangkil, and mangkus mentioned by @Nimbus are not newly indonesian word. In fact those words are the official / standard words already in KBBI for decades.
Many standard Indonesian words are rarely used in actual conversation, and many native Indonesian don't know that words are exist. Here few examples of standard Indonesian terms used in engineering
Bahang = heat
Nir gayut = independent
Ondoh = drift
Talun = resonance
Tingkap = aperture

 

[Nimbus]

This is the first time I know what is cekidot, although I eard it few occasions but didn't bother to ask.

The words unggah, unduh, sangkil, and mangkus mentioned by @Nimbus are not newly indonesian word. In fact those words are the official / standard words already in KBBI for decades.
Many standard Indonesian words are rarely used in actual conversation, and many native Indonesian don't know that words are exist. Here few examples of standard Indonesian terms used in engineering
Bahang = heat
Nir gayut = independent
Ondoh = drift
Talun = resonance
Tingkap = aperture

New is relative. When I started getting on the Internet in 1996 nobody used unggah and unduh. The words existed in the dictionary because they were adopted from Javanese.

Anton M Moeliono tried to popularize sangkil and mangkus when he published the first KBBI in 1988. It's true that they have been around for decades, but until the big dictionary was published people simply didn't use them. I think most people still don't use sangkil and mangkus.

 

[Puspawarna]

One word of fairly recent vintage (because the concept itself has only been around for a decade or two) is "beranda" for "home page" on a web site. That's an easy one to understand and remember. (A quick Google search shows that it's a loan word from Dutch, not English as I would tend to assume.)

 

[dafluff]

This is the first time I know what is cekidot, although I eard it few occasions but didn't bother to ask.

The words unggah, unduh, sangkil, and mangkus mentioned by @Nimbus are not newly indonesian word. In fact those words are the official / standard words already in KBBI for decades.
Many standard Indonesian words are rarely used in actual conversation, and many native Indonesian don't know that words are exist. Here few examples of standard Indonesian terms used in engineering
Bahang = heat
Nir gayut = independent
Ondoh = drift
Talun = resonance
Tingkap = aperture

I didn't know any of those!

Also just remember an interesting one: Tongsis, short for "tongkat narsis" (narcist stick), which I feel is a much more accurate description for a selfie stick.

 

[snpark]

semuk, sexy and gemuk

 

[jstar]

.
Be somewhat careful if you talk about chili peppers. CABE = Cewek Alay Bisa Entot.

The cabe has gotten quite a sexual connotation, esp. in cabe-cabean. It is mostly used to refer to an ayam.

Depending on the color of the cabe, it is the age of the girl. You can guess that green starts very young and going to red via orange increases the age (and professionalism).
.

 

[Nimbus]

Wastra.

The word is ancient because it's Sanskrit, but the use is very recent. It means textile.

To be fair Soekarno was fond of Sanskrit terms. Many rooms in the Kompleks Parlemen (previously known as MPR/DPR) had barely pronounceable Sanskrit names. Apparently digging up ancient words is cool again.

 

[jstar]

Ansos.

Kids hooked on Social Media.