Indonesia & Russia

as a child I was fascinated be the sheer size of Soviet Union, and even today Russia still, thanks to Kaliningrad, spans the same number of time zones as in Soviet time, eleven.

Indonesia is located within four time zones, yet for the sake of practicality the westernmost one, which Aceh would fall into, is included into WIB a.k.a. western indonesian time.

blue: WIT (Waktu Indonesia Timur) = eastern indonesian time

green: WITA (Waktu Indonesia TengAh) = central indonesian time

yellow: WIB (Waktu Indonesia Barat) = western indonesian time

I won't list the names of the time zones in Russia, but as you can see, they stretch from Kamchatka Time (dark red) to Kaliningrad Time (dark green).



I've learned a few years ago that the countries down north look bigger because of the fact that our planet is like a ball, and since the Mercator map projection is one of the most widespread, we end up being acquainted to maps where Greenland is as large as Africa.
the further away from the equator you go, the bigger the size distortion becomes.

what I didn't realize for the longest time was that this also has an effect on the time zones.
a time zone (that is, 1 hour) is by definition a zone that covers 15° distance between two longitudes.
if you take the equator as a circle (360°) and divide it by 24 hour, then you get 15° for each hour.

unlike the distance between two latitudes, which stays the same whether you are on the equator or  near the poles [equator to 15°S is the same distance as the north pole to 75°N], the distance between  two longitudes [on the same latitude] get smaller the further away you go from the equator.

imagine the latitudes as rings hugging the earth. 
the equator is the biggest ring, and the other rings get smaller the more you approach the poles.
yet each ring still has 360° and still gets divided to 24 x 15° a.k.a. 24 hour.
as a result, a time zone gets narrower to closer you get to the poles.

I did my maths and found that:
a time zone [15°] at..

• the equator = 1 667 km
• 10°N = 1 641 km
• 15°N = 1 610 km
• 30°N = 1 442 km
• 60°N = 832 km
• 78°N = 346 km

so a time zone at 60°N (or 60°S. but we'll use N because Russia is in the N.) is only half as long/wide as at the equator.
and Russia is deep in the north.

as you can see, Russia lies around 60°N (the yellow line), where a time zone is only half as large as on the equator. 
a large part of the country even lies further north, where the time zones are even narrower. 
one time zone, the Srednekolymsk [orange/beige one on the picture above, next to Kamchatka Time], lies almost completely north of 60°N.

Russia is indeed still very large, yet this has changed my view.
after all, Indonesia/Russia is not as small/huge as a I used to think, since on similar latitudes as Russia, Indonesia would have at least 7 time zones, and on the equator, Russia would have not even half the number of time zones it has now.

Politeness by changing me instead of you

I was just reading a blog post about politeness in languages.
european languages are most (or even only) familiar with the distinction in the 2nd person pronoun [English being a major exception since it uses only you].

in a previous post I demonstrated the pronouns in Indonesian, at least how it is used in Jakarta.
Indonesian (or Malay) is known for its relatively easy grammar. yet in this post I'll point out to something in Indonesian which can be quite intricate for those who are familiar only to european languages.

as is clear from the examples, the pronouns for «me, my, I» in european languages do not change according to the level of politeness.

in Indonesian, the pronoun doesn't change whether it's an object, a subject, or acts as a possessive pronoun; thus saya can mean me or my or I (examples in previous blogpost).
yet interestingly, Indonesian uses a different pronoun for me/my/I depending on who you're speaking to.
saya is the most polite/neutral form, aku is slightly more intimate, and while guä is quite widespread among peers, yet when used wrongly, it may end up being rude and/or vulgar. a similar case is perhaps the use of vos in Chile [yet again, unlike Indonesian, vos is a pronoun referring to the addressee.].

each of the sentence below means: 

she/he* knows that I..







yet you do not say (3) to someone older than you that you respect.

it's interesting how differently languages "think". I often ask myself how much it affects the way their respective speakers (or understanders in case of a passive knowledge) think as well.
another example is the genderlessness.
some of you have perhaps noted that dia in Indonesian (or Malay) means both her/she and him/his/he. but I'll save it for another post. ;-)

ps: in German you could actually replace mich/ich with meine Wenigkeit. but its use is quite rare.

Weltweit grösste matrilineare Kultur in Indonesien

ich bin jetzt seit einem halben Jahr in Indonesien, und ich bin dankbar dafür dass ich Freunde, oder mindestens einen sehr guten Freund gewonnen bzw. geschenkt bekommen habe.

er heisst Aldi [jëpp, wie der SuperMark_t. ;-) ] und gehört dem Volksstamm Minangkabau.

im Gegensatz zu Deutschland spielt der Stamm oder ethnische Gruppe in der indonesischen Gesellschaft immer noch eine relativ wichtige Rolle. auf die Frage „woher kommstu?” ist es auch heute noch normal, mit der Stammzugehörigkeit zu antworten, obwohl mann ganz woanders geboren und/oder aufgewachsen ist.

zurück zu Aldi und den Minang (Kurzform von „Minangkabau”).

die Minang stellen weltweit die grösste matrilineare Kultur dar. das wusste ich schon lång und [ihre Matrilinearität] ist allgemein bekannt unter den Indonesiern.

die matrilineare Seite der Kultur steht in einem krassen Gegensatz zu Islam, dem die Minang traditionell an gehören. wann sie islamisiert wurden, weiss ich (noch) nicht so genau. jedenfalls finde ich es persönlich recht beeindruckend wie sie ihre Kultur und Islam über die vielen Jahre, ja Jahrhunderte, weitgehend vereinigen.

wie erwähnt, wusste ich schon lång um die Matrilinearität der Minang. dennoch staunte ich nicht schlecht als Aldi mir vor ein paar Tagen etwas von seiner Familie erzählte. ihm sei hier Dank für die Erlaubnis, die Geschichte hier zu veröffentlichen.

in der Minangkultur wird das meiste über Frauen vererbt. das schliesst u.a. den Familiennamen [darauf kommen wir später zurück] und Land oder Grundstück mit ein.

vor einiger Zeit hat Aldi mir schon erzählt, wie seine Grossmutter mütterlicherseits fast getötet wurde da sie die einzige Tochter der Familie war. solch ein Mordversuch war nun mal gang und gäbe da es um Erben ging. meist geschah der Versuch nicht durch direkte körperliche Gewalt, sondern andere Strategien wie beispielsweise Vergiftung wurden oft an·gewandt, um die einzige Tochter einer Familie zu töten.

Gott sei Dank konnte die Vergiftung von Aldi's Grossmutter verhindert werden [sonst würde er ja nicht existieren..], und diese bekam selber mehrere Töchter. eine davon ist Aldi's Mutter.

Aldi's Grossmutter hatte etwas Grundstück/Land im traditionellen Minangkabauland in Sumatra vererbt. das Land sollte an ihre älteste Tochter gegeben werden. nicht an Aldi's Mutter also, denn diese hat noch eine ältere Schwester. allerdings hat diese keine Tochter, wohin·gegen Aldi eine Schwester hat, die sogar eine Tochter hat. deswegen verlor Aldi's Tante ihr Erbrecht als die älteste Tochter. es fiel an Aldi's Mutter und weiter an seine Schwester, und später an seine Nichte.

Minangkabauland in Sumatra

Quelle: Wikipedia

und nun zu den Familiennamen. die Minang haben etwas wie Familiennamen, die über [..raschenderweise! ;-) ] Frauen weitergegeben werden.

allerdings wird der Familienname heutzutage nicht gebraucht.

dies ist meine eigene Theorie/Spekulation darüber, weshalb die Minang ihre Familiennamen nicht tragen:

1) viele ethnische Gruppen in Indonesiens, u.a. die grössten wie Javaner und Sundanesen, haben keine Familiennamen. seit einer Kette von Ereignissen*, in der Minangkabau involviert war[en], versuchen die Minang, sich stärker zu assimilieren oder einfach sich unauffälig zu verhalten. ein Weg ist indem mann [oder frau in diesem Kontext :p ] den Familiennamen nicht gebraucht.

[*Interessierte können sich über die PRRI-Bewegung weiter informieren] 

2) frau versucht die Verzwicktheit zu vermeiden die entstehen kann wenn eine Minangkabaufrau einen Familiennamen tragenden Mann heiratet. welchen Namen sollen denn die Kinder bekommen?

wie erwähnt, sind die Punkte bloss Spekulationen meinerseits. wer besser weiss, melde sich gerne. (:

Gruss

Eur Xolång

ps: Verzeihung wenn ich den Begriff "vererben" falsch gebrauche. nach sovielen Jahren in D'land verwechsl ich  immer noch "vereben" und "erben". -_-

Halloween in Indonesia

This year is going to be my first October 31st in Indonesia after 13 years and I've started seeing signs of people, or rather some companies in the numerous malls you have, celebrating Halloween here.

Back in North Germany I kind of enjoyed the celebration because it was at least fitting to the seasonal change. the weather supported the "spookiness", if you will. and after all Halloween has its roots in an ancient Celtic holiday Marking the end of the lighter half of the year and the beginning of the darker half.

Here in Indonesia, celebrating Halloween is IMO a bit ridiculous.

For one, it does not get darker. -_-

Also, it's not like we had any substantial amount of Celtic immigrants.
The redheads you see here are mostly not of Celtic origins.

Even without any recent Celtic background there were in Germany at least other traditions like Pumpkin Carving that could be sort of "connected" to Halloween.

There exists no such thing in Indonesia. Nada.

There's basically NOTHING to commemorate.

It's obvious that there is no reference to celebrating Halloween in Indonesia whatsoever;

not seasonal,

nor religious,

nor traditional,

nor cultural,

nor historical..

If there was a tradition around October-November I'd carry from my stay in Germany, it would be pumpkin eating. In fact, I just ate a really delicious meal pumpkin soup today. Thanks Mama! ^_^

me/my/I a.k.a. first person singular pronoun in Indonesian

the pronouns in Indonesian generally do not change depending of whether they are an object or not. and in spite of that the pronouns in Indonesian still have some flexibility in terms of their position.

let’s start with the pronoun me/I/my, which in textbooks is usually called 1^st person singular.

I will cover only the way the pronouns are used in the Capital Jakarta.

whenever I tell my occidental friends that me, I, and my, have the same form in Indonesian, they get amazed at how easy it is. yet at the same time it is a bit more complicated in a different way. i.e., there are several pronouns depending on the situation. I’ll now present you three pronouns (of 1^st person singular) which are most common in Jakarta:

1.    saya

2.   aku

3.   guä

see notes on pronunciation below.

1.

saya is in a way the safest form to use in Indonesian. if your interlocutor happens to feel more comfortable using aku or even guä, you can still always switch.

saya is derived from an older version of the word, “sahaya”, which means “slave”. but nowadays practically nobody knows the original meaning of this word. it is a simple me/my/I.

itu kakak saya

that · elder sister/brother · me/my/I

that’s my elder sister/brother

das ist mein(e) ältere(r) Schwester/Bruder

dia dua tahun lebih tua dari saya

(s)he · two · year · more · old · than · me/my/I

sie/er ist zwei Jahr älter denn ich

dia memberikan saya sebuah durian

(s)he · gave/give · me/my/I · a · durian

sie/er gab/gibt mir einen Durian

saya suka durian

me/my/I · like · durian

ich mag Durian

2.

aku is more familiar. you usually use it with someone you already know, or within a family.

aku can be (and often is) shortened to ku as an affix.

thus, taking the examples above:

itu kakakku.

dia dua tahun lebih tua dariku.

dia memberikanku sebuah durian.

aku suka durian.

aku is also the pronoun used in lyrics. 
thus almost all songs use aku, and in the Bible and Koran, one encounters aku.

3.

guä is more vulgar than aku, and may even sound rude to some people. it can generally be used only with people who are of your age.

guä can be pronounced as gua or as guè. this word has a pretty interesting history. since it came from a Chinese dialect/language called Hokkien. the www will give you more information about that in case you’re interested.

gua is the more original form, yet because the Betawi dialect/language tends to pronounce the final –a as an –è, it becomes guè.

again, using the examples above:

itu kakak guä

diä dua tahun lebih tua dari guä

dia memberikan guä sebuah durian*

guä suka durian

*this sentence is hypothetical, since guä is very colloquial, whereas memberikan is bookish or formal.

it is more likely to hear: “diä ngasih guä durèn sebiji’”.

notes on pronunciation:

saya, aku, guä all are stressed on the last (thus 2nd) syllable.

also, the K in Indonesian is not aspirated, thus to english or german ears, aku or ku may end up sounding like agu or gu.

some other (1rst person singular) pronouns that you may hear used in Jakarta are:

ayè

Betawi. from “saya”.

anè

Betawi. from arabic “ana”.

ogut / ogud
roots unknown. probably a modified form of "guä".

kita

from Manado Malay. can be confusing since “kita” means us/our/we in Standard Indonesian.

ay

believe it or not, from english “I”. interestingly, it follows the native grammar. thus it stays “I” even when in english “me” or “my” would be required.

however, the use of these pronouns is rather marginal.