Singularity on the Plane

One essential aspect of learning a language is learning its vocabulary. In my Japanese study, this tranlates into learning kanji which are the building block of many words.

Most kanji are for things I am familiar with. Some examples are 人 (hito, person), 玉 (tama, ball), and 火 (hi, fire). Many are for common animals like 虫 (mushi, insect), 亀 (kame, turtle), and 猫 (neko, cat). Unexpectedly, I quite oftenly encounter kanji for an animal or plant that I have no knowledge about.

An example is 藤 (fuji, tou) which is the kanji for the plant genus Wisteria. It is found on many people’s name, such as 藤本美貴 (Fujimoto Miki), 後藤真希 (Gotou Maki), and 工藤新一 (Kudou Shin’ichi).

Using KANJIDIC or EDICT, I only get a brief description like “wisteria”. That is useless for someone with a shallow knowledge such as me, but enough as a pointer to get more information elsewhere. If I’m not online, my next stop is Stardict, which gives more detail such as “a climbing plant with purple or white flowers”. At least I could know that “Wisteria” is a plant, not something else like “hysteria”. My final stop is of course Wikipedia, which gives detailed descriptions and more importantly, images!

I’ll share some of the new living things I’ve discovered… Do you know them?

Wisteria

In Japanese, it is フジ (藤, fuji). And no, Mount Fuji is written differently. It is native to Japan and other countries including eastern US. It can climb by twisting itself along any available support. As I have written above, it is used on many people’s name. Anyone knows its Indonesian name?

Cicada

In Japanese, it is セミ (蝉, semi). I found it on Berryz Koubou’s song titled “Semi”. It is a family of insect that makes a lot of noise (but it’s different from Cricket). According to Wikipedia Indonesia, the Indonesian name is Tonggeret (never heard it before).

Chrysanthemum

In Japanese, it is キク (菊, kiku). I found it on an author’s name (菊池, Kikuchi) at the digital library Aozora Bunko. In Japan, this plant is a symbol of death and are only used for funerals (which means, don’t give it to your Japanese girlfriend). 菊花紋章 (kikukamonshou) is the name given to the position of Japanese emperor. By the way, I recently went to Moro department store and found a Chrysanthemum product. It is a Chinese product and how happy I was to see the character 菊 written on the box :). The Indonesian name is Seruni (never heard it before too).

Manchurian Violet

In Japanese, it is スミレ (菫, sumire). I also found it on a writer’s name (薄田泣菫, Sasakida Kyuukin, and please don’t ask me what “sasaki” means). Is it also “Violet” in Indonesia?

Japanese Royal Fern

In Japanese, it is ゼンマイ (薇, zenmai). I knew what a fern is, but I was curious whether this fern has a striking difference (nothing striking to a layman like me). Strangely, it is the kanji used in Rose (薔薇, bara), which is where I found it. In Indonesia, ferns are called paku or pakis.

If you want to be able to read people’s name, you’ll be sure to encounter lots of these exotic kanji. It’s almost like they’re forcing us to be a botanist or zoologist. You’ll also find these kanji in songs and literatures (e.g., novels), because writers want to look cool by using obscure characters.

As a closing, note that I use katakana to write the name of the plants and animal above. This is a modern practice, which originates from the scientific community. Even in the Japanese Wikipedia, the article for dog is titled イヌ (inu) despite its kanji 犬 being taught in grade 1 elementary school. It is probably a sensible decision, considering that there are countless living things on Earth.

There are many random books here in Purwokerto, and some days ago I found two books with absurd titles.

First up is a book on my cousin’s bookcase: Bahasa JEPANG Hanya 1 Hari (Japanese in only 1 day) by Yan Tirtobisono. I was like “Heh!!!” when reading the title. I’ve learned this language on my spare time for around 2 years and still can’t do nothing :)… (well, yeah, probably because I’m not working hard enough)

The book’s 256 pages contain set phrases in roomaji without any grammar explanation. More like a travel pamphlet for me. I know that the Indonesian mentality is wanting results instantly without much effort, but, 1 day?!? Give me a break…

The other one is from my brother’s room: Korea dalam 10 x 365 hari (Korean in 10 x 365 days) by HS. Maru Lis. We all know that 10 x 365 days means 3650 days which means around 10 years!!! I was like “What the?!? This is a complete opposite of the other book!”.

I knew the author must meant something else, so I peeked at the contents. It turned out to be a 365-days lesson, with each lesson teaching 10 words. More like a dictionary for me. Anyway, the title is one of the most serious abuse of mathematical notation that I’ve encountered.

When lecturers give students writing homework, most students just Google for the topic and then translate some (English) web pages they found. However, ignorance of the topic or underutilization of common sense usually creates a translation that’s silly.

Last semester, I took “Introduction to the history and philosophy of mathematics”. The class is divided into groups and each group must make a paper about the topic they choose. Before the test, I managed to get all the group’s paper. One paper particularly stood out, so let’s try to reverse engineer it!

• “Ini dapat dibuktikan dengan PENGENALAN” -> “This can be proved using INTRODUCTION”. Great, a new proving method has just been invented. It obviously should be “Ini dapat dibuktikan dengan INDUKSI” which in English is “This can be proved using INDUCTION“.
• “Teorema PENGINGAT Cina” -> “Chinese REMINDER theorem”. As in, “the theorem that reminds you to eat and take a bath”. The correct translation should be “Teorema SISA Cina” which in English is “Chinese REMAINDER theorem“. A famous theorem in number theory.
• “Seekor laba-laba memanjat DENGAN beberapa kaki di dinding…” -> “A spider climbs the wall USING some feet…”. Because the problem doesn’t ask for the number of feet the spider has (or uses), the translation that makes sense is “Seekor laba-laba memanjat SEJAUH beberapa kaki di dinding…” (”A spider climbs the wall FOR some feet…”).

It’s as bad as a Biology student translating “order” (in taxonomy) to “pesanan” (as in “pizza order”).

Substandard translation is also found in commercial translated English textbooks. Sometimes, it’s as if the translator didn’t check whether their sentence makes sense.

I’ve also found some funny translations in the Indonesian sub of movies containing techonological (e.g., “open source“), scientific (e.g., “string theory“), and mathematical (e.g., “group“) jargons. It caused some chuckles but sadly I don’t remember them. (IIRC it’s in, among others, “Antitrust”, “October Sky”, “A Beautiful Mind”, “Good Will Hunting”, and that movie about natural disaster where birds suddenly fall from the sky)

Some language elements are naturally used by native speakers but probably hard to master by foreign language learners. An example is dozens of gobi in the Japanese language (yo, su, wa, ne, na, sa, etc). Another example is “lah” in Bahasa Indonesia. In this post I’m going to explain some use cases of “lah” (not as a suffix such as “biarlah” and “tingalkanlah”).

“Lah” can be used to emphasize a statement. An example is:

Rudi: Kamu seneng dia ya? (You like her, don’t you?)
Tono: Enggak lah! Dia kan temenku dari kecil. (Of course not! She’s my childhood friend, you know.)

Rudi: Jagoin siapa Ton? (Tono, who are you holding?)
Tono: Arsenal lah! Mana mungkin MU menang. (Of course Arsenal! MU can’t win.)

When used to start answering a question, it indicates that the answerer thinks that the answer should be obvious to the questioner.

Rudi: Ini maksudnya gimana sih? (What does this mean?)
Tono: Lah, kemarin kan udah dijelasin sama dosennya? (Didn’t the lecturer explained yesterday?)

Tono: Eh, Liat kertas tadi nggak? (Do you know where that paper is?)
Rudi: Lah, bukannya barusan kamu pegang? (Weren’t you just holding it?)

“Lah” can also be used to indicate confusion, when something expected don’t occur:

(while watching a film) Lah? Kok jagoannya mati? (Huh? The hero dies?)

(searching a book in the bag) Lah? Kok bukunya nggak ada? (Huh? Why isn’t the book here?)

“Lah”, when appended at the end of an advice, makes it sound more relaxed.

Jangan ngebut-ngebut lah, toh masih banyak waktu. (You shouldn’t drive too fast, there’s still much time.)

Santai aja lah, sebentar lagi juga dia bakal ke sini. (Just relax, he’ll surely arrive here soon.)

Lah, kok tiba-tiba ngomongin bahasa sendiri? (Why am I suddenly talking about my own language?) Well, when I was thinking about Japanese gobi, I asked myself “Can I explain a similar language element in Bahasa Indonesia, like “lah”?” Thus this post.

In Bahasa Indonesia “berdua” (dua = 2) means “together (2 people)”, “bertiga” (tiga = 3) means “together (3 people)”, and so on. For example, “kami bertiga tidak ikut” means “we (3 people) didn’t go”.

However, “bersatu” (satu = 1) means “to become one/united” instead of “alone (1 person)”. “Alone” is “sendiri”. “diri” means “self”, while “sen-” seems to be a prefix that is derived from “se-” which means one (segelas = one glass, serumah = (living in) one (same) house, sekelas = (being in) one (same) class).