most culturally diverse countries. Mindful of that variety, this book offers only a slice of how Indonesians talk.
Although Indonesian is officially a young language, it contains words from Sanskrit, Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, Portuguese and English, a legacy of the merchants, warriors, laborers and holy men who traveled to the archipelago over the centuries.
The Indonesian language was a nationalist symbol during the campaign against Dutch rule in the 20th century. Indonesians who fought against colonialism made it the national language in their constitution when they declared indepen dence in 1945.
Two generations later, modern Indonesians love word play. The tongue slips and skids, chopping words, piling on syllables and flipping them. Indonesians turn phrases into acronyms, and construct double meanings. Their inventions reflect social trends, mock authority, or get a point across in a hurry. Colloquial Indonesian is constantly evolving, and often bears little resemblance to the “correct,” written form of the language, a source of concern to some linguists. Such a divergence is common in languages worldwide, but the vast ethnic mix and breadth of linguistic influences in Indonesia deepens the trend.
Some expressions are easy to match up with idioms from other cultures. Musang berbulu ayam is a civet in chicken’s feathers. In other words, a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
This book divides Indonesian expressions into categories such as food and wisdom, politics and personalities. The format is the same in each chapter. An expression in Indonesian, or sometimes a regional language in Indonesia, is followed by a translation, an interpretation of the meaning, and usually a summary of the idiom’s origin or background. Some translations are more literal than others, reflecting an effort to balance clarity of meaning with the flavor of the original words.
We are grateful to Tantri Yuliandini and Amalia Ahmad for their contributions, and to Sara Datuk and Johanna Wulansari Istanto for their valuable suggestions. Many thanks also go to Mia Amalia, Murizal Hamzah, Prof. Anton Moeliono and Dr. Jan-Michael Bach.
As journalists, we covered a chaotic period in Indonesian history in the late 1990s. The currency plummeted, students protested, riots erupted, and the president resigned, triggering euphoria over the promise of new freedoms and uncertainty over unleashed tensions that often spilled into violence.
Years later, the image of Indonesia as a nation on the brink of collapse has faded. Democracy has taken hold and Indonesia is a place of potential, even if corruption, terrorism and other problems persist. Away from the headlines, bahasa Indonesia tells a different story about Indonesia and its people.
CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA & LELY DJUHARI
PART I
Life Forms
Chapter One
Creatures
Indonesia teems with tame, predatory and mythical animals. Some stick to the jungles, some loiter in your living room. Others roam the underworld.
“Office rat” = Thief.
A miscreant lingers in the office or on the factory floor until everyone leaves, then swipes valuables before scurrying away like a rodent.
Tikus negara (state rat) is a government worker intent on personal gain. A motorcycle policeman on the take pulls over a motorist who runs a red light or stop sign. The driver settles the case on the spot. He leans over and tucks a banknote into the cop’s boot, which rests on the foot peg of his bike.
Rats are part of life in Indonesia. They rummage through garbage at street corners and crawl from drainage ditches. They gnaw on house foundations, chew window screens, scuttle in ceilings, slither around the water bowls of squat toilets, leave droppings beside bedside tables and munch through food containers. A newspaper columnist once proposed putting a bounty on rats, but the idea fizzled.
Rats are cunning and live in the same surroundings as humans, so they make good symbols of unsavory characters such as tikus berdasi (rat in a tie) and tikus berjas (rat in a suit).
Rats are also a scourge in the countryside, where they eat rice and other crops, inflicting huge losses on farmers. They multiply and spread disease.
“Jumping squirrel” = A thief who waylays vehicles on long journeys.
Bajing loncat was the bane of the trans-Sumatra highway, a major artery stretching between Lampung province in the south and Aceh province in the north of the island.
Luggage-laden buses or cargo trucks formed convoys on the highway for safe passage through forests at night. Groups of bajing loncat hid behind trees at curves, or near potholes and bumpy stretches, and jumped onto the backs of slowing vehicles. They climbed up to bus roofs, or opened rear truck doors, and lobbed bags and goods onto the street. Then they leaped off, backtracking to collect the booty. Drivers and passengers realized their misfortune when they reached their destination.
You can travel the length of the trans-Sumatra road in two days, making regular stops. Jungle foliage and neat palm plantations line the road between towns of two-storey wooden buildings. The worst stretch of road is in the Palembang area in the south. You sometimes come across an overturned truck that blocks the road, delaying the trip for hours. Bandits lurk in places. Children converge on buses at rest stops and beg for money.
Bajing loncat is also a term for someone who jumps on the bandwagon. In early 2004, President Megawati Sukarnoputri criticized several former ministers in her Cabinet who had quit to run in the presidential election. She described them as bajing loncat, fickle people who pursued their own interests, not those of the nation. One of them, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, defeated Megawati in the election and became president.
“Snapper class” = Top of the line
A red snapper fish is big and bold, and feeds on smaller fish. But kakap, which can refer to any large fish, also has negative connotations. Penjahat kelas kakap is a big-time gangster; playboy kelas kakap is a habitual womanizer.
The low end of the scale is kelas teri (teri is a small fish).
Ali Ghufron, an Islamic militant who claimed to have fought alongside Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and two other people were sentenced to death for organizing bombings that killed 202 people at nightclubs on Bali island on October 12, 2002. During his trial, Ghufron said he was ikan teri (small fry) and that U.S. President George W. Bush and his allies were the big fish who deserved punishment. Authorities blamed the attacks on Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian terrorist network linked to al-Qaida.
Ghufron and the two other militants were executed in 2008. Their families said they believed they would be rewarded in heaven.
“Jumping louse” = An opportunist
Someone who bounces from one job or scheme to the next, like a louse that dances in locks of hair.
Mati kutu (dead louse) is a cornered, powerless person.
Kutu buku (book louse) is a bookworm, or nerd. The term is complimentary because book lice are smart and eager to learn. Some Indonesian literacy campaigners hoisted huge posters with a cartoon image of a bespectacled louse, smiling and reading a book.
Lice are a nuisance in rural Indonesia. Farmers sigh with exasperation when they find lice squirming in grain sacks, but take the discovery in stride. Villagers, mostly females, sit on front porches on a lazy afternoon and pluck lice from the heads of friends and relatives in full view of passers-by. Lice-laced hair doesn’t inspire revulsion. Villagers often