Balinese language instruction website - in Japanese

For those of you proficient in reading Japanese, here's a really cool website about learning my language specialty, Balinese.

http://www.aa.tufs.ac.jp/~asako/textbook/first.htm

It has several lessons with sound files and skits included (yes!).

「私の記憶が確かならば...」 Two people wanted to take on the challenge of doing a short skit - in Balinese. I won't name names ;), but are you two (and anyone else, for that matter) up for it?

A Public Service Announcement - in Balinese and Indonesian

Here's an interesting video - it's a public service announcement regarding the question of food coloring additives. Funny enough, the commercial is called "Zat Perwarna: Bule ke Doktor" (Food Coloring: White Guy goes to the doctor). And the "bule" speaks Balinese and Indonesian pretty well...



Here's a transcript - Indonesian in bold, Balinese in regular typeface:

Bule: Ne, bagus sekali. Jaja ini, aji kuda asiki, Bu?
[These (look) very good. These rice cakes, how much for one, ma'am?]

Bu: Seribu nika.
[That is Rp 1000.]

Dokter: Punapi niki, Gus?
[How is this [patient's condition], Gus?]

NB: "Gus" is short for "bagus", which literally means "handsome" in Balinese. It also can be used to refer to a young man.

Gus: Kenten, Dok. Tuni semangan timpal tiange ngebus, menceret-menceret. Kena penyakit napi niki Dok?
[Gus: It's like this, Doc. Earlier this morning my friend (the bule) became "hot" inside (but not feverish), constantly having diarrhea. What sort of disease does he have, Doc?]

NB: Kena is the Indonesian word for coming upon something unexpectedly and having an adverse effect, so kena batu would mean to "be struck by/stub one's toe on a rock". Kena penyakit therefore means 'to be struck by a disease'.

Dokter: Tiang periksa dumun, inggih?
[Doctor: I'll examine (him) first, alright?]

O, niki wenten peradahan(?)
[Oh, here's some metallic-looking substance.]
(If my translation of "peradahan" is appropriate...)

Polih ajeng napi timpal ba singgih?
[What did your friend happen to eat (if I may ask)?]

Singgih is an extremely respectful way of saying 'sir', and it implies either the addressee's high caste or something else.

Gus: Dugas ibi tiang ajak beli jaja. Kena demen ajak jaja ada warnane ngencerengin, dok.
[Gus: Yesterday [he] was with me buying rice cakes. [He] liked (there's that kena verb again; 'struck by liking', literally) the cakes with the interesting colors, Doc.]

Dokter: Makane hati-hati milih makanan. Sampunang tertarik ring warnane sagede-gede kemanten. Minab timpal Guse niki keracunan zat pewarna.
[Doctor: You have to be careful about selecting food. Don't be attracted to the colors too much. Perhaps your friend (Gus' friend, literally) got food color poisoning.]

Sameton sareng sami, sampunang anggen zat pewarna, sane ten dados anggen makanan, minakadi sumba, wantek miwah muruh.
[All my fellow people, don't use food coloring substances, those that are not to be used in food, especially safflower dye, rhodamine dye, and indigo.]

Well, "now you know"...

Introduction in (regular) Balinese

Now, here's my intro in basa Bali biasa (regular Balinese) - you'll notice the differences right away.

A very good traditional Balinese story

I thought I'd let you all listen to a Balinese story told by a native Balinese speaker, since it's an interesting language to listen to. The story is called "Miss Bean Angel" (Ni Kacang Dedari), and it basically concerns a young woman who is advised by her mother to not step out of her family compound since there is a dangerous demon named "I Lantang Idung" (Mr Long Nose) wandering about. The mother steps out each morning to go sell and buy various items in the market. Every time Kacang Dedari's mother is at the market, I Lantang Idung tries to lure her out of the compound, to no avail. The mother, though, has a special song that she sings to get her daughter to open the door. Later, as soon as the mother goes to the market, I Lantang Idung forces a nearby duck farmer to sing the mother's song for him in her voice (why this works I don't know). Ni Kacang Dedari, thinking that she hears her mother's voice, opens the door and is kidnapped by I Lantang Idung. This is the end of this first video.

Vocabulary items one should watch for:

peken 'market'
anak 'person'
(Notice that Balinese uses this Austronesian word for 'person' where elsewhere, it means 'child' - the word for 'child' in Balinese is panak/pianak.)
(ng)oyong 'to live somewhere'
(ng)adep 'to sell'
magedi 'to leave'
pesu 'to go out'
lantang 'long'
idung 'nose'
adan 'name'
ampak(in) 'to open (for someone)'
meme 'mother'
biang 'mother (more respectful term)'
rangsasa 'demon, monster'
jlanan 'door'
kacang 'bean'
dedari 'angel'
anak luh 'woman'
panganggon bebek 'duck farmer'
ia 's/he'
ene 'this'
ento 'that'
ditu 'there'
sing 'no, not'
(m)plaib 'to run'; (m)plaibang 'to run away with someone'
(ng)kaukin 'to call someone out'
(ba)kal FUTURE marker
keto 'like that'
(e)da 'don't'
tiang 'I (mid-polite form)'
ada 'to exist'
(n)tepukin 'to find, see'
tulung 'help'
apa 'what'
(ng)aba 'to bring'
teka 'to come'
gelisin 'to speed up'
satua 'folktale'
lantas 'and then'



The storyteller (a friend of a friend, named Nyoman "Target") is very skilled here - pay attention to how he characterizes Ni Kacang Dedari vs. the demon I Lantang Idung. I'll put up part 2 if there's enough interest - but right now, I would like you to just listen to the language itself, since not too many non-speakers take the opportunity to listen to it carefully. I especially like the line from I Lantang Idung Yen sing pesu, kal makpak tulangne! 'If you don't come out, I'll chew your bones!'

How to greet in Bali - Cara salam di Bali

Well, after the "interesting" tidbits I've presented so far for Balinese, I guess it's time to present something a bit more practical.

When you visit Bali and try to talk with some of the locals, many of them may know a minimal amount of English (or other languages in the more touristy areas) - sometimes this amounts to a simple "Hello Mister!", even if you're a woman. (Kids love saying this - and you may soon get a bit annoyed by this, believe me.) However, it's always better if you can speak to them in Indonesian, at least. In order to start of this conversation, you'll need to know the following:

Selamat (time of day).

What do we put in the "time of day" slot? Here are some possibilities:

pagi: 'morning' (from 6 AM - 11 AM)
siang: 'day' (from 11 AM - 3/4 PM)
sore: 'late afternoon' (3/4 PM - 6/7 PM)
malam: 'evening' (7 PM and later)

And then the simple 'hello' - Apa kabar? (literally, what's the news?)

The appropriate responses to this are: Baik (well, fine), bagus (good), lumayan (just so-so; alright), or even lumayan bagus/lumayan baik (good enough/fine enough). The first two can be further modified by the adverb sekali 'very', e.g. baik sekali 'very well' and the noun kabar 'news', e.g. kabar baik (sekali) '(very) well'.

Now, to introduce yourself, you say

Nama saya ____.
'My name is _____.'

Notice that the possessor saya 'I, me, my' comes after the possessed nama 'name'. Also, a copula is not necessary in Indonesian.

To ask "What's your name?", you say

Siapa nama Anda?
Siapa namanya?
Literally "who is your name?"

Siapa means 'who', and this is the correct thing to say at this point.

Anda 'you' is interesting: it supposedly has its origins from Japanese anta, and it's considered to be extremely formal but impersonal, so the rule of thumb is to wean yourself away from this pronoun as soon as you can call your addressee something else. Of course, if you're in a highly formal situation, it's better to use this pronoun.

The alternate way is to say namanya, which literally means "the name" or "his/her name". (The suffix -nya is extremely difficult to define in a succint manner - I'll put up a future post about this.) In this situation, since you are speaking directly to your listener, he or she will know exactly whose name you are asking about. However, if you point to someone else, then the meaning changes to "what's his/her name?"

To sum up, this is how you greet and introduce yourself in Bali (and elsewhere in Indonesia) using Indonesian:

Selamat _____.
Apa kabar?
Nama saya _____.
Siapa nama Anda?/Siapa namanya?

===========

That's all fine and dandy. However, what if you encounter a person who only seems to speak Balinese, like a child who's not in school yet or an elderly person? The situation is a bit more complex because Balinese is a langauge with multiple speech levels or speech styles, which change depending on the status(es) of not only the person you're talking to, but also the person you're talking about.

We can at least divide Balinese into three styles: Low, Middle, and High. The speaking conventions may be summed up like this: Low - used for intimates and people of inferior castes; Middle - mostly used for people who do not know each other's caste(s), as well as talking about people of higher caste while speaking to lower caste addressees; High - used for people of higher caste, and large audiences.

To begin your greeting in Balinese, nowadays many people use the traditional benediction phrase Om Suastiastu 'May all be well', as I explained previously in my Aksara Bali post.

Immediately afterward, people usually ask each other's names, since there is a lot of caste information contained in personal names. So, let's ask this appropriately in Balinese. If we see someone besides a child, we should ask either:

Sira wastane?
or
Sira pesengane?

Sira is 'who' in Middle and High Balinese, while wastane is 'the name' (cf. namanya) in High and pesengan is 'the way one is addressed' in Middle Balinese. (One can also say sira parabe where parab = 'name' in Middle Balinese, but I've never heard this used.)

The response is:

Wastan tiange/titiange ____.
(tiang (M)/titiang (H) 'I, my, me')

With a child, the situation is a bit more flexible - back then, one had to speak high or middle to someone of higher caste, especially nobles and high priests, even if they were still children. Nowadays, this isn't so stringently enforced.

In most cases, you can use the Low version of this question, which is:

Nyen adane?

You can immediately see the different between the Low vs. Middle/High speech styles - every word in this question is different. Nyen is 'who' and adan is 'name' in Low Balinese. Low Balinese in general contain words that are Austronesian in origin (compare adan to ngaran in Pangasinan [Philippines] and pa-ngalan in Tagalog).

The response in this case is:

Adan tiange/cange ____.

(Be careful when referring to yourself as cang [chang], which is Low Balinese.)

Of course, the addressee will probably say the following names:

Wayan/Putu, Made/Nengah/Kadek , Nyoman/Komang, Ketut

These are birth order names, so you would be immediately given one of these names as soon as you're born: Wayan/Putu for the first-born, Made/Kadek/Nengah for the second, Nyoman/Komang for the third, and just Ketut for the fourth. After the fourth, the cycle starts again. After these birth order names are one or more given names. (Family names/surnames are not used in Balinese culture; rather, they practice teknonymy, which is renaming themselves "Father of X/Mother of X" once they have children.)

These names are usually indicative of Low caste, so you can use Low Balinese a bit more freely at this point (unless they explicitly say otherwise).

However, if they respond with the following, e.g. Dewa, Agung, Gus, Dayu, Cokorda, Anak Agung, and others, these are (usually) people who are of higher caste. Thus, you should avoid casually using Low language around them - they will outright correct you if you misspeak.

Now that you've survived the struggle to ask someone's name in Balinese, you should ask how they're feeling, right? To say 'how are you', the forms are

L: Kenken kabare? (How's the news?)
M/H: Napi orti? (What's the news?) or Punapi gatrane? (How's the news?)

And to respond:

L: Biasa (do)gen. (Just 'fine' or 'normal')
M/H: Becik-becik. (Fine.)

Well, that's how you meet-n'-greet in Bali in a nutshell.

Tiang pamit.

Aksara Bali - Balinese script

One thing that learners of Balinese will notice is that they will rarely encounter the language in some type of written form - it's more of a spoken language, although this situation is rapidly changing. For a language scholar such as myself, I've had more exposure to written Balinese, but the struggle is kept to a minimum since Balinese is presently predominantly written with Roman script. However, there is a resurgence of Aksara Bali/Tulisan Bali 'Balinese alphabet/Balinese script', which is largely based on the Brahmi scripts of South India. (You might have seen other examples such as Thai, Devanagari, Khmer, Tamil, and the like - all these are based on Brahmi.)

Here's a great site regarding the Balinese alphabet:

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/balinese.htm

The story is this, basically: most Balinese learn the script during their formative years in SD (elementary school), but most soon forget this afterward. The only types of text where this script regularly appears are traditional religious texts and treatises, usually incised on dried strips of palm leaf called lontar. NB: This is where Balinese gets its curvaceous nature - any extended straight line would tear the palm leaf.

Brahmi scripts are difficult to understand on the one hand - they are usually described as abugida, which simply means a syllabic-based alphabet where all consonants have an inherent vowel. In order to change the vowel, one must add specific diacritics to the original consonant.

So, how does Balinese do that? Well, let's take the first letter, ha, which is:


This, of course, has the inherent vowel /a/. In order to change this vowel, diacritical marks must be added to this consonant.
hi:

hu:

he:

ho:

Now, another complication in Brahmi-based scripts is the fact that traditionally, words were not separated by spacing; only clauses and paragraphs were. Additionally, since there are plenty of "closed syllables" (i.e. syllables that end in consonants) in Balinese, there is a lot of potential confusion with using a syllabic alphabet when it comes to consonant clusters. For example, if one had to write panak Sri 'Sri's child', it would be incorrect to write:


This transliterates to *panakaśari, which doesn't mean anything in Balinese. So, Balinese and other Brahmi scripts have developed alternate forms of these consonants, which are usually referred to as conjunct consonantal forms. Thus, the most appropriate way of writing this would be pa-na-kśri, with the ś and r in their conjunct forms (which in turn "kills" the inherent vowel of the two first consonants in this cluster, i.e. kś):


And then one last example, this time with multiple clusters - the common benediction/greeting in Bali Om Swastyastu 'May all be well'. It is usually written Om (its own special symbol since it is so ritually charged) Swa-stya-stu:


Inggih wantah asapunika mangkin. Titiang mapamit dumun.


[Yes, that will be all for right now. I will take my leave.]

Counting in Indonesian and Balinese, part 1

Ya, saya mau membicarakan cara penghitungan dengan bahasa Indonesia dan bahasa Bali. Cara penghitungan dalam bahasa Indonesia agak gampang dan polos; akan tetapi, cara tersebut dalam Bahasa Bali lebih sulit karena banyak kata-kata yang harus dihafalkan saja.

So, I want to discuss how to count in Indonesian and Balinese. Counting in Indonesian is rather simple and straightforward; however, the same process in Balinese is more difficult because of the many words that just have to be memorized.

Dalam bahasa Indonesia, cara penghitungan berdasarkan sistem desimal, jadi yang bisa berbahasa yang lebih terkenal (seperti bahasa Inggris, Perancis, Jepang, Korea, Tionghoa, dan sebagainya) bisa mengerti sistem tersebut dengan mudah.

In Indonesian, counting is based on a decimal system, so those who speak more well-known languages (such as English, French, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and so on) can easily understand such a system.

Nomer bahasa Indonesia
(Numbers in Indonesian)

1 - satu
2 - dua
3 - tiga
4 - empat (atau singkatannya [or its abbreviation] pat)
5 - lima
6 - enam (atau singkatannya nem)
7 - tujuh
8 - delapan
9 - sembilan
10 - sepuluh (se- berarti 'one'; puluh berarti 'ten', jadi se+puluh adalah "one ten")

[se- means 'one'; puluh means 'ten', so se+puluh is "one ten"]

11 - sebelas
12 - duabelas
13 - tigabelas
14 - empatbelas/patbelas
15 - limabelas
16 - enambelas/nembelas
17 - tujuhbelas
18 - delapanbelas
19 - sembilanbelas
20 - dua puluh
21 - dua puluh satu
30 - tiga puluh

[dan sebagainya]

100 - seratus [ratus = 'hundred']
200 - dua ratus
500 - lima ratus

1.000 - seribu [ribu = 'thousand']
2.000 - dua ribu

10.000 - sepuluh ribu
100.000 - seratus ribu
1.000.000 - sejuta [juta = 'million']
1.000.000.000 - milyar [milyar = 'milliard' = billion]

Awas - di Indonesia, tanda baca titik dipakai untuk memisahkan nol-nol di nomer "1.000", "10.000", dan lain-lainnya.

Caution - in Indonesia, the period is used to separate the zeros in the numbers "1,000", "10,000", and others.

Polos dan gampang, ya?

Straightforward and simple, right?

Sekarang di bawah ada cara penghitungan bahasa Bali. Di samping lain, walaupun cara penghitungan dalam bahasa Bali berdesarkan sistem desimal juga, ada lebih banyak kata hitungan yang aneh, yaitu tidak mengikuti pola ini. Jadi, kata-kata itu harus dihafalkan dan diingat aja.

(R) berarti "bahasa rendah", dan (T) berarti "bahasa tinggi".

Now, the counting system in Balinese is featured below. On the other hand, although the way of counting in Balinese is also based on the decimal system, there are many more words that are rather unusual, such that they do not follow this pattern. So, those words simply must be memorized and remembered.

(R) means "low language", and (T) means "high language".

====

Nomer bahasa Bali
Numbers in Balinese

1 - sa, (a)besik (R), (a)siki (T)
2 - dua (R), kalih (T)
3 - telu (R), tiga (T)
4 - pat
5 - lima
6 - nem
7 - pitu
8 - kutus
9 - sia
10 - dasa
11 - solas
12 - roras
13 - telulas
14 - patbelas
15 - limolas
16 - nembelas
17 - pitulas
18 - pelekutus (!)

[Sekarang Anda harus berpikir bahwa sistem ini berisi keanehan]

[Now you must be thinking that this system has some peculiarities]

19 - siangolas (!)
20 - duang dasa
21 - selikur (!)

["Likur"?? Apa artinya? Sebenarnya, artinya "di belakang" nomer dua puluh.]

[Likur? What does that mean? It actually means "on the back" of twenty.]

22 - dualikur
23 - telulikur
24 - patlikur
25 - selae (!)

[Eh? "Selae"? Ya, bener, artinya sebenang 25 buah mata uang berbolong atau "kepeng". "Lae" dari "lawe", yg berarti "benang".]

[Huh? "Selae"? Yeah, that's right, it means a string of 25 Chinese cash coins or "kepeng". "Lae" is from "lawe", which means "thread".]

26 - nemlikur
27 - pitulikur
28 - ululikur (ulu = kata kuno berarti "delapan" [Old form for "eight"]
29 - sangalikur (sanga = kata kuno berarti "sembilan")
30 - telung dasa
31 - telung dasa besik

Nomer bahasa Bali aneh yang lain
Other unusual Balinese numbers

35 - pesasur (bukan *telung dasa lima) [not *telung dasa lima]
40 - petang dasa (petang - kata bersengau [nasalized form] untuk "pat")
45 - setiman (bukan *petang dasa lima)

[sehimpunan 45 buah timbaga untuk jaring mancing]

['a set of 45 metal weights for fishing nets']

50 - seket (bukan *limang dasa)
75 - telung benang (bukan *pitung dasa lima)
100 - satus
150 - karobelah (bukan *satus seket)
175 - lebak (bukan *satus telung benang/*satus pitung dasa lima)
200 - satak (bukan *duang atus)

Kenapa rumit begini? Ya, ada berhubungan dengan transaksi di pasar-pasar, yang termasuk cara penghitungan mata uang Cina kuno yang bernama "kepeng". Jadi, ada banyak nomer-nomer di bahasa Bali yang melibatkan konsep yang berhubungan "kepeng". Saya mau menjelaskan lebih banyak di catatan blog di depan.

Why is it so complex? Well, there's a connection with transactions in the markets, which include the ways of counting the old Chinese coins called "kepeng". So, there are a lot of numbers in Balinese that involve concepts related to "kepeng". I will explain (these concepts) further in a future blog entry.

Sekian dulu - sampai nanti!

That's it for now - until the next time!

Salam kenalan (Glad to make your acquaintance)...

Apa kabar? Kenken kabare? 안녕하세요. 잘 지내세요?

Hi, my name's Ed, and I'm currently a grad student of linguistics based in San Diego (at the moment). I was born and raised here, so naturally I'm a native English speaker, but my parents came from the Philippines, so I also grew up hearing Tagalog and a little bit of Ilokano (my father's language). However, I'm not able to speak them at this point. I've been interested in learning different languages, particularly those that are off the beaten track. Instead of joining my fellow junior high and high school students in their Spanish classes, I took French. And I studied Japanese a couple years before that (that was the first foreign language I studied). I've also managed to study Korean for about a year.

Learning languages is not my only passion, however. For over 15 years, I've been studying, performing, and teaching Balinese and Central Javanese music and dance, studying with many renowned teachers both here in the US and in Indonesia. This, of course, naturally progressed into an interest in learning the languages associated with these performing art traditions. You can see some of my performances here. And you can see one of the groups I've recently performed with here.

Over the years, I've become fluent in Indonesian, and I've been doing a lot of research on Balinese, so most of my posts will be on these two languages. My hope for this blog is to provide some useful and/or interesting tidbits of knowledge I've gained from learning both Indonesian and Balinese (along with the occasional posts about the other languages I've studied) and to be able to share them with a larger audience.

Let me close by saying:

Inggih, ngampurayang titiang duaning makeh iwang titiang. Mogi-mogi ida dane sareng sami sida dados ledang kemanten sareng pikolih niki.

Ya, tolong ampuni saya karena kesalahan saya banyak. Semoga Anda kalian bisa menjadi puas dengan akibat ini.

[Yes, please forgive me for making a number of mistakes. I hope that you are all satisfied with the results.]

Sampai jumpa lagi! (Until we meet again!)