More lah

Jennifer Lindsay*

Sitting at the airport in Bali on my way home from the Ubud Readers and Writers Festival, I had a great conversation with the psychologist and writer Danny Yatim about Indonesian emphasis words. All those dong-deh-nih-sih type words I wrote about in the last column. I find people always love to talk about fine details of Indonesian like these once you start asking interesting questions. And there is always so much to learn.

Danny showed how the meaning of 'yes' changes when you combine it with one of the five main Jakarta particles or insert words. Of course, also you have to factor in intonation, which is an important aspect of using these words. Firstly, the most emphatically positive, 'ya, dong!' meaning, 'yes of course', 'sure!' Then there is 'ya dh', said in a low tone, which emphasizes agreement, also meaning 'of course', but has the nuance of 'well, yes, if you insist', or 'yes, okay then'. If you add 'sih' to make 'ya sih', it conveys 'yes, on second thoughts I agree' or 'yes, I suppose you are right'. You are agreeing with someone, but rather weakly. If you add 'ah' to make 'ya'ah', then the speaker's discomfort and hesitancy is clearer still. 'Ya'ah' is 'yes, alright (if you say so)'. So those four different emphasis words express different levels of comfort in affirmation. And then there is the particle 'kan' which is used to make 'ya, kan?' which means 'you see'? and when that 'kan' is drawn out with a rising tone, 'ya, kaaan?' it means 'I told you so!'