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Saturday, October 27, 2018

Gibberish

One more thing about language, as an addendum to my post on the subject from yesterday. 

In addition to speaking proper Indonesian along with the native language of a particular island, and possibly parts of one or two western languages, all Indonesians speak yet another language, which may as well be called gibberish. It's gibberish to me, anyway; and, unfortunately, it is the preferred language of common folks here. One might describe it as a "street" language (or Bahasa kampung)--very heavy on slang and other alternative words and constructions. 

By way of example, as I was coming out the front door today, I encountered a handyman on the property next door. As is common with Indonesians, he was eager to chat with me. Whether or not he was aware that I understood very little of what he said, this did not deter him in any case. I got, in general, that he was describing the work he was doing inside the house; and then he seemed also to be talking about a woman who had rented some other place and had ultimately left without paying the rent. I think. He had quite a lot of say about other things as well, but I have no idea what it was. 

I remember mentioning to my wife once that I sometimes had a hard time understanding our friend Samuel, who often did work for us at the house. She shrugged and said, "Yeah, I don't understand him either." And she was born and raised in Indonesia! 

This kind of reminds me of a boiled peanut salesman I once met on the road in central Georgia. He was a talker too, and while I was able to successfully conduct the purchase of a bag of boiled peanuts, I really had no idea what he was saying. Of course, that was largely a problem not of words unknown to me but of words hopelessly mangled by a thick southern drawl. 

So one does a lot of nodding and does his best to react appropriately to facial expressions rather than word meanings, chuckling here, frowning pensively there. That after all--nodding, chuckling, pensive frowning--is a language we can all understand. 

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