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Have any of you learned any Malay/Indonesian? Fantastically easy. Purely phonetic, simple grammar, not tonal or anything else weird. I seriously think, as an E

Have any of you learned any Malay/Indonesian? Fantastically easy. Purely phonetic, simple grammar, not tonal or anything else weird. I seriously think, as an English speaker, it’s easier to learn than German or French or whatever, even though it has no relationship with European languages (unlike Hindi, which is part of the same Indo-European languages... in spite of the “Indo” prefix, there’s no relation). It helps that there are many loan words from English, but it seriously is an extremely easy to learn trade language.

bradrn 5y ago
That’s basically because Standard Indonesian has been artificially Europeanicised, or so I hear: > In both Malaysia and Indonesia, there is a misguided belief that in order for a language to be able to fulfil the functions of a "national language", it must have a "well-developed" system of grammar. Unfortunately, the only type of grammar that the language planners are usually familiar with is the Eurocentric grammar of European languages.Thus, Standard Malay / Indonesian has had a variety of linguistic features artificially grafted onto it that are reminiscent of European languages, including nominal number marking, verbal active and passive prefixes, and others. — Gil 2001, Escaping Eurocentrism: Fieldwork as a Process of Unlearning (https://git.rahona.be/luigi/sose2020/raw/commit/89acbd0429820316cf75d28ad81c82880aaa5c03/monography/eurocent.pdf https://git.rahona.be/luigi/sose2020/raw/commit/89acbd042982...)
- adamjb 5y ago
  >Malay / Indonesian is one of the world's major languages, with up to two hundred million native speakers. Actually, though, it is not one language, or even two, but a family of languages with about as much internal diversity as the Slavic or Romance language families. My dad had a gig teaching Indonesian to members of the ADF in the lead up to to their peacekeeping mission in East Timor (INTERFET). Quite logically he taught them Timorese Indonesian, which got him in trouble because they wanted him to teach standard Indonesian.
- Tainnor 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure I have read that same paper back when I was in university. Odd coincidence. :)
arthurofbabylon 5y ago
The history behind the proliferation of Indonesian is wild. As the government developed and Indonesia started to nationalize, choosing a common, sanctioned language was an obvious priority. And instead of working from the most commonly spoken language/dialect, they chose an obscure language that would offend few. I suspect one reason Indonesian is often considered the easiest language to learn derived from the fact that it was promptly (and recently) adopted by a diverse group of varying language speakers, and allowed to evolve to suit them all.

bradrn 5y ago

That’s basically because Standard Indonesian has been artificially Europeanicised, or so I hear: > In both Malaysia and Indonesia, there is a misguided belief that in order for a language to be able to fulfil the functions of a "national language", it must have a "well-developed" system of grammar. Unfortunately, the only type of grammar that the language planners are usually familiar with is the Eurocentric grammar of European languages.Thus, Standard Malay / Indonesian has had a variety of linguistic features artificially grafted onto it that are reminiscent of European languages, including nominal number marking, verbal active and passive prefixes, and others. — Gil 2001, Escaping Eurocentrism: Fieldwork as a Process of Unlearning (https://git.rahona.be/luigi/sose2020/raw/commit/89acbd0429820316cf75d28ad81c82880aaa5c03/monography/eurocent.pdf https://git.rahona.be/luigi/sose2020/raw/commit/89acbd042982...)

adamjb 5y ago
>Malay / Indonesian is one of the world's major languages, with up to two hundred million native speakers. Actually, though, it is not one language, or even two, but a family of languages with about as much internal diversity as the Slavic or Romance language families. My dad had a gig teaching Indonesian to members of the ADF in the lead up to to their peacekeeping mission in East Timor (INTERFET). Quite logically he taught them Timorese Indonesian, which got him in trouble because they wanted him to teach standard Indonesian.
Tainnor 5y ago
I'm pretty sure I have read that same paper back when I was in university. Odd coincidence. :)

arthurofbabylon 5y ago

The history behind the proliferation of Indonesian is wild. As the government developed and Indonesia started to nationalize, choosing a common, sanctioned language was an obvious priority. And instead of working from the most commonly spoken language/dialect, they chose an obscure language that would offend few. I suspect one reason Indonesian is often considered the easiest language to learn derived from the fact that it was promptly (and recently) adopted by a diverse group of varying language speakers, and allowed to evolve to suit them all.