Learning Indonesian, Part 3

I've been learning Indonesian for about two years now. I'm better at it than ever before. But I'm also questioning whether I should continue.

What use is it to learn a language for yourself, now that AI is as good as it is at translating? I think it's still useful if you want to be able to talk to people without pausing to check your phone for the translation. Also it's useful if you want to feel the full emotional impact of writing or speech. What are the connotations of words? What makes something a good joke or a bad joke? Or good poetry or bad poetry? Even prose has humor and poetry in it. Writing styles use sound, which make more sense if you know the language well. So it is still useful if you want to get close to a people group.

Do I want to do something like that? Before, it seemed clear. It could be useful to relate my writing to the Pancasila religions (Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism) and also to Indonesian culture in general. This would best be done if I knew people there and read enough Indonesian literature to belong (or to have the substitute for belonging that writers have when they know a culture well-enough to write about it). But now that I think about it, I'm probably never going to be the most qualified person to do the task of relating to the Pancasila religions. It makes more sense for someone who is a "native speaker" in those religions and/or in Indonesia to do that. But maybe I would be the only person who would be willing and available.

Is it likely that I would be? Looking at my priorities, I think that if that day comes, it will be far in the future. First, I would try to focus on philosophy. Next, on relating my philosophy to the Western world (primarily to America, where I live). After that, hopefully someone more qualified than me would know about my writing, to get into the non-Western world. If not, then it might make sense for me to learn Indonesian. But I may never need to for my writing project.

What about for other reasons? I don't see myself doing development-related writing. Maybe move there to save money? I guess it's possible that that would make sense, but it's uncertain that it would. I can already pursue relatively superficial online friendships with people in Indonesia using machine translation. (The deeper ones run into problems with indirect communication, and the usual problems with the fragility of online relationships.) Learning a language is a pastime and mental workout. But I can find others.

If I need Indonesian, I can pick it up again. My two years of learning it should give me some foundation. I took Spanish classes in high school and college, and have put basically no effort into maintaining my Spanish since, but I find that what I did know I can bring back when I need to, given a bit of time to get back into it.

So my thought for now is to forget about learning Indonesian for now, unless and until I really need it.

Blog Chapter 4 Summary and Bibliography

Looking at my blog posts, I realized that they naturally came in different periods or phases. The 2019 posts were one, then there were those from 2020 - 2021, and then those from 2021 - 2022. In spring of 2022, I decided to deliberately create a phase, which I called a "blog chapter", this being the fourth one.

I think the previous three were things that arose spontaneously and in response to my own needs, while this fourth one was premeditated and a bit artificial. Somewhat like doing a year of school.

This chapter has been about the "exilic-familial", among other things. I explored themes of nation, culture, family, childhood, and education. These topics connect to a vision that I had before officially starting the blog chapter (or, I was hypomanic and wrote something), about "cultural altruism", a path for those trying to do good through culture or in cultural areas, articulating with art, religion, humanities, politics, and effective altruism and especially its "Long Reflection" idea. When we try to govern the world, we are, and should be, informed by nation, culture, family, childhood, and education.

Two specific cultures were themes, Jewish (especially as I best know it, from the Old Testament), and Indonesian. Jewish culture is a family of holiness, and also has a history of enduring exile. I saw in Judaism (at least in the Old Testament itself) a kind of honesty coming out of having lost, and the idea of not winning and that being a route to peace and holiness. I saw in it families broken and reconciling.

Indonesian culture is (to me) about syncretism and unity-in-diversity, as well as a connection to Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Indonesia is a nation that attempts to pull together diverse groups, and which has a history of mixing religions. (I didn't really explore these themes in depth, but only discussed Indonesia a little.)

The war in Ukraine and the polarization of US politics are in the background.

This chapter, written in about seven months if you include the cultural altruism writings drafted in March and April, surprisingly (to me) is in the same order of magnitude of number of words as the three preceding chapters combined, about 20% less. I keep feeling like I do the math wrong when I count (maybe somehow I do), but I think it's right. I didn't feel like I was working any harder when I wrote. Perhaps I was under the influence of hypomania? I clearly had it in late March, but maybe it continued in a non-obvious, attenuated form throughout the seven months.

I've felt different ways over the last few weeks. Sometimes depleted, sometimes not. I've thought about quitting or drastically cutting back on writing, and also going on full bore. I think what has been particularly hard has been working to finish this after I had already moved on from being into this blog chapter. I could use much of myself as usual to work, but not all of me.

--

These are the books reviewed in this blog chapter. Links are to my reviews:

Holy Resilience, by David M. Carr, hardback (1st ed.?) ISBN 978-0-300-20456-8

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, Bantam Classic paperback, ISBN 0-553-21277-X

In the Shadow of the Banyan, by Vaddey Ratner, 1st hardback ed., ISBN 978-1-4516-5770-8

Between Man and Man, by Martin Buber, tr. Ronald Gregor Smith, Macmillan Paperbacks Edition, 1965, no ISBN

Creative Destruction, by Tyler Cowen, paperback, ISBN 0-691-11783-7

The Meaning of Marriage, by Timothy Keller (with Kathy Keller), hardback (1st ed.?), ISBN 978-0-525-95247-3

Along the Way, ed. Ron Bruner and Dana Kennamer Pemberton, paperback (1st ed.?), ISBN 978-0-891-12460-3

On the Genealogy of Morality, by Friedrich Nietzsche, tr. Carol Diethe, Cambridge edition, paperback (Revised Student ed.), ISBN 978-0-521-69163-5

Teaching Children to Care, by Ruth Sidney Charney, paperback (1st ed.?), ISBN 0-9618636-1-7

Indonesian Songs Translated

Earlier, I wrote about some Indonesian songs, "Anjeun", "Kalangkang", "Es Lilin" (the versions by Nining Meida), and "Cinta Melulu" by Efek Rumah Kaca. I intended to see what the songs meant when translated into English, and here is my attempt.

Overall, two out of three of Nining Meida's songs, recorded in the 1980s, are about love, and maybe the third ("Es Lilin") is as well. So love songs were nothing absolutely new in Indonesia when ERK released "Cinta Melulu". I assume ERK was more opposed to bad love songs or morally corrupting ones than artistically well-done or morally enlightening ones.

"Anjeun":

This song, and all the others by Nining Meida, is in Sundanese, a language spoken by one of the people groups of Indonesia. It's a relatively big people group, and so Google Translate has a translator for it. Also, there's a site called terjemahansunda.com that can translate Sundanese to many other languages.

I tried terjemahansunda.com and translate.google.com and neither of them has a function (or enough of a function, as far as I saw) to provide multiple meanings when words mean more than one. Without that, I don't think I can be an armchair translator very effectively. I don't intend to learn Sundanese any time soon, so I decided just to copy down the translate.google.com output, but it has some obvious problems, like untranslated words and seeming nonsense (things which such artists as Elizabeth Fraser and David Bowie might use, and some which in their way might work with the song, but others which sound like Mad Libs).

The song is more ambivalent than I would have guessed from the music.

--

There is no one to love except you
There is no one to worry about except you
The best in the world
the best in the world except you
Anu heman and daria
Who promised to be faithful only to you

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
I am happy to meet you
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
I'm sorry to be beside you
Just a little unfortunately

If you meet Osok, ask to rush
The base must be unknown
No, you've already...

===

There is no more

That's what you think
There is no more
who is happy except you
Inggis is allowed by others
Inggis loves someone else except you
Every night reading
Special sorting pellets for you
Oh, oh, oh,
Less eat less sleep thinking of you
Oh, oh, oh,
Want to be close
want to be close... Only with you
The base must be unknown
Send a letter with the wrong content
Bad luck and harm
Break up here and there...

==

There is no more
Who loves except you
There is no more
Who cares except you

The best in the world
the best in the world except you
Anu heman and daria
who promised to be faithful only to you

Oh, oh, oh
I am happy to meet you
oh, oh, oh,
I'm sorry to be beside you

Just a little unfortunately
If you meet Osok, ask to rush
The base must be unknown
No, you've already...

"Es lilin"

I found the MIDI of "Es lilin" that I liked back in the day, and I now think that the part I liked was just the melody, which Nining Meida sings somewhat differently, so I thought the old melody had been an instrumental line added by the MIDI programmer. But it's a good MIDI, and the site for it is still up. There are a lot of Indonesian songs there in MIDI form.

Here is that site's version of the lyrics, translated through translate.google.com:

ice candle is eu-ceu
young coconut
helped me eu-ceu
to Majalaya

I'm sorry
I'm sorry
that there is a mistake

And here are the lyrics for Nining Meida's version:

The ice candle was pushed and pushed
I was helped by Sukajadi
I'm ashamed of my unexpected employer
I'm sorry it doesn't happen

Ice candles are made in Bandung
I took it to Cipaganti
I'm ashamed to be ashamed
I'm sorry it doesn't happen

That's who the boss is leading the buffalo
tied with a handkerchief
that's who is my employer too
the one who doesn't listen to me is better than jungjun

The ice candle is very light
it feels like a cabin
I am a wise employer
I'm always afraid of being taken anywhere

--

While working on this, I found a video on YouTube that translates the Sundanese lyrics of "Es Lilin" into Indonesian, so maybe there is some hope for me to someday find the meaning of "Es Lilin".

"Kalangkang"

This one turns out to make some sense as run through Google Translate. I think it does fit the spookiness of the music.

In the dream
It's so close
Kanyaaah is clean
Loyal as a lover...

In the dream
It's so cute
Sweet friendly face
Do not be ashamed

Long flowing hair
The hand is stretched out
Slowly face up
The hug felt tight

Above the sand flour geten
A symbol of blossoming love
The happiness of the two... the two

Unfortunately....it's too bad
It's just a shadow...
Hope ... hope .... SELF
That is in line with reality

"Cinta melulu"

Since this song was in Indonesian, I had more resources available, and I came up with a translation that is plausibly faithful to the song and also makes sense:

[Verse 1]
Nada-nada yang minor
-Tones that minor
Lagu perselingkuhan
-Adultery song
Atas nama pasar semuanya begitu klise
-On behalf of market [each other] [that way] cliche

[Minor key adultery song, cliches to make money]

[Verse 2]
Elegi patah hati
-Elegy breaks heart/mind
Ode pengusir rindu
-Ode repellent longing
Atas nama pasar semuanya begitu banal
-On behalf of market [each other] [that way] banal

[Elegies (beautiful, graceful, classy, stately songs) that break your heart / mind. Odes (similarly classy) of repellent longing. For commercial reasons, banal]

[Chorus]
Oh hoo
Lagu cinta melulu
-Mere love song
Kita memang benar-benar melayu
-We very really Malay
Suka mendayu-dayu
-like limp
Lagu cinta melulu
-Mere love songs

[We Malay people like limp songs that are merely love songs]

Kita memang benar-benar melayu
-We very really Malay
Suka mendayu-dayu
-like limp
Lagu cinta melulu
-Mere love songs

[(same)]

[(Lyrics repeat)]

Learning Indonesian, Part 2

Update on learning Indonesian.

I realized after a while that looking at random Indonesian Wikipedia pages wasn't rewarding. Mainly because, while it was true that I was learning some words as I tried reading them, I needed a more efficient way to build my vocabulary.

(My theory is that young children mostly build up a grab bag of vocabulary words and then later on figure out how to use them, and use them correctly within their culture. So I will try a similar method.)

A method that I am trying is to make lists of 25 words each (derived from Indonesian Wikipedia pages), and then run through them with a quiz program (quiz from bsd-games). Sometimes I type the English words in response to the Indonesian, and sometimes the opposite. Some words have multiple meanings. Sometimes one meaning will sort of cover all of them. But otherwise I just learn one of the meanings, figuring that I will have to figure out the nuances later. For now, I want to keep my momentum going and learn lots of words, even if imperfectly. My goal is to get to the point where I can mostly read random Indonesian Wikipedia articles, maybe have to learn a few words as I go, or maybe even figure out words I don't know from context.

If I had to give advice to my younger self, or generic younger selves (high school or college students studying Spanish), I would say to learn vocabulary on the side, like I'm doing now with Indonesian. School teaches you how to learn, and theory / grammar, and helps you avoid pitfalls, but to actually master subject material, you need to study on your own. A language that you are half-fluent in is less than 50% as useful as one you are fully fluent in, and school language classes (at least, from my experience with seven years of Spanish) will not make you fluent. But it is relatively painless, and maybe even enjoyable, to acquire lots of vocab words.

I remember some philosophy grad students I knew, who looked at their fellow students, and noticed which ones studied philosophy on their own time, and which only studied the philosophy that they had to for school. A sign that you are really into philosophy is that you study it on your own, in addition to what you have to for school.

Reason and Budi

Epistemic status: quick thoughts, haven't tried to think through all the implications in depth.

I can't remember if I've written any of this in this blog before, but I have an idea of what reason is: the interrelationship of all truths, and/or of all evidence -- and, "evidence" being anything which people perceive, whether with senses, noetically, or in any other form that may exist. Reason is the process for coming to the whole truth.

Today I read an article about Indonesian philosophy, which discussed budi. It says at one point

The Great Dictionary of the Indonesian Language defines budi as an 'inner faculty which integrates reasoning and feeling to distinguish between good and evil.'

The article also mentions that Indonesian philosophy is integrative, mentioning how its Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam are seen as one thing, in a sense, which perhaps has some parallel to my definition of "reason".

How can budi and my "reason" interrelate? Perhaps budi is being present to the moment or situation which connects to one's reasonings and feelings? This presence enables you to see how they all add up to form some kind of moral judgment. You actually see them for what they are. Or maybe it's like if the world is full of 2's, and 4's, but without budi, you can't see when two 2s makes a 4, as though budi supplies the +'s and ='s needed to say "2 + 2 = 4"? So then budi is an embodied faculty which allows a person to form a more integrated truth, and thus is necessary to connect to or seek the whole truth, the ultimate goal of reason.

The whole truth is made up of sub-whole-truths, which contain the whole truth within some limited area. Each sub-whole-truth requires that the person looking at them have budi or something like it, in order to understand that reality, if that reality contains any kind of intuitive content. Perhaps merely to integrate reasoning with reasoning requires something akin to budi, although this is getting further from the definition given. Also, perhaps budi only applies to cases where good and evil or right and wrong are being distinguished. But good/right and evil/wrong (or "value and disvalue", perhaps) are woven into maybe literally everything, and thus (almost?) always are needed to know the truth of anything.

It's possible to limit yourself to only the sensory world (the sub-whole-truth of the sensed world), and thus avoid the intuitive and perhaps thus budi, but maybe you can't know good and evil that way, and for practical purposes, we need to know some kind of axiological charge of what we perceive so that we know what behaviors will be purposeful, will have a point, with respect to what we perceive. We relate to reality, and this is part of knowing the truth. We, as persons, who have to live. Thus we need to know good and evil -- maybe we have a kind of mutilated budi still in operation in the "fact / value split" West. This budi enables us to see that there is a point in doing things, and what that point is, despite the way our culture suppresses our conscious affirmation of moral realism, the idea that there is a fact as to what values there are. Any sub-whole-truth that connects to practical action requires budi or something like it.

Learning Languages; Indonesian

I met someone on a pen pal site from Indonesia, and I got interested in learning more about that country. Then, I was having a hard time getting writing done one day and thought about learning Indonesian. So I went to the Indonesian Wikipedia and looked around. I looked up some of the words that looked interesting, and tried using the random article function to explore. I found that I was learning that way.

Now doing that, or similar things, is a little bit of a habit, maybe 20 minutes a day. Indonesian is an easy language to learn, I think. I've tried learning (in descending order of how far I got:) Spanish, German, and Russian before, all of them through some kind of "official language learning" thing (school, cassette tapes, Duolingo). I realize now that that spirit takes the fun out of learning, and that it's better to do something inexpertly over and over over a long time period than to do things well for a while and then give up. If you keep your love for something, you can go far. I like freely exploring "all knowledge" (Indonesian Wikipedia) rather than learning practical things I would need as a tourist, or grammar. I guess someday I'll end up learning those things somehow.

Indonesian and Spanish are both spoken in the developing world, which interests me. Indonesia is the fourth-most-populous country in the world. Could climate change (or war?) send refugees to where I live who speak Indonesian or Spanish? Or maybe I could spend time in Indonesia, where the official religions include Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism (as well as Christianity). If I ever get to the point in my life where I want to focus on non-Christian religions, that might be a good place to go. Or maybe I could go to Tijuana, which could be a day trip for me where I live, and speak Spanish there, or find someone where I live whose main language is Spanish. (Or I could interact with those languages' social media worlds.)

A saying that I read in The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson is "you overestimate what you can do in a year but underestimate what you can do in ten years". I don't think I'll be fluent in Indonesian anytime soon.

How serious am I about learning Indonesian? I tried to quit learning, and decided not to, and then I felt the interest coming back on its own. This is a sign to me to consider myself really on the way to learning the language.