September 16, 2014 edition
Jennifer Lindsay*
Indonesia has a new President- and Vice President- elect. One speaks Indonesian with a marked Javanese accent, Central Javanese to be precise. The other speaks with an Eastern Indonesian accentSulawesi, to be precise. The outgoing President and Vice President both speak Indonesian with slight Javanese accents.
Sowhat is a Javanese accent? It is a question of intonationand also a particular way of pronouncing certain consonants, particularly 'd' and 't', with the tongue immediately behind the teeth. It is also heard in the tendency to wipe all diphthongs (so ram not ramai) and in the open 'o' sound. Listen to the way President-elect Joko Widodo pronounces his name, 'Widodo'. The 'o' is pronounced halfway between an 'o' as in 'or' and a' as in 'ah', and the 'd' is right at the front of the mouth. His name is not Indonesian but Javanese, of course, so indeed that is how it should be pronounced, but many Indonesians of Javanese background carry this same pronunciation into Indonesian in general. He does. They also tend to speak Indonesian (formally at least) using a relatively narrow pitch range.
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More Word Watch articles in other editions
August 26, 2014 edition
Jennifer Lindsay*
Over the past couple of months I have been translating a book that frequently refers to compass points. The words for the four cardinal points I do not have to think about (utara, north; selatan, south; timur, east; barat, west), nor tenggara for southeast because it is so familiar from Asia Tenggara for Southeast Asia, but the words barat daya, barat laut and timur laut for southwest, northwest and northeast, stump me every time. After all these years, they just don't stick.
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January 1, 1970 edition