Obama spoke Indonesian to one the State Department civil servant

[Ichingcarpenter]

The civil servant called out hello in Indonesian and they both
began conversing a little. The Civil servant had served in Indonesia.

I thought that was cool.

[eleny]

1. That was great

It gets better and better.

[DesertFlower]

3. yes. it does.

:hi:

[eleny]

14. Hi sweets!

:hi:

[Xipe Totec]

2. Isn't it amazing to have intelligent life in the White House? n/t

[Ichingcarpenter]

6. I'm glad Schuster caught that bit at the State Department

It really was a nice piece that
added depth to our new president.

It was after the speeches and when Obama was slowly leaving the crowd.

[Captain Hilts]

4. Fantastic!

Kinda like the Roosevelts speakin' German when Einstein came to dinner.

[Taverner]

5. Not to nit pick

the official name is "Bahasa" - same language spoken in Malaysia.

Indonesian is "Bahasa Indonesia" and Malaysian is "Bahasa Malay"

[Ichingcarpenter]

7. Nit

and pick......... thanks

[progdonkey]

10. not to nit pick, either...

but "bahasa" just means "language" in Indonesian.

Only the foreigners would refer to Indonesian as just "Bahasa", as in "Do you speak Bahasa?" Indonesians would say, "Apakah kamu bisa bicara bahasa indonesia?"

Saying "Bahasa Indonesia" when you're speaking English would just make you sound pretentious, and saying only "Bahasa" would make you sound like an American tourist.

[Ichingcarpenter]

12. OK...... thanks guys....

Is it a difficult language?

[Taverner]

15. Nope really easy

And to nit pick back

This is true - Bahasa means language - but the two are so similar, and the grammar exactly the same - the only thing that differs is some vocab differences

My favorite aspect of it is plural is just the same word, twice. So two (or more) buses would be bas bas.

[Taverner]

16. BUT LET ME ADD it is way cool Obama can speak it

I can't - I just knew enough to survive for a few months there (Malaysia)

[progdonkey]

21. not at the basic level...

It's pretty simple to pick up (I grew up there, as my late mom was in the Foreign Service--who knows, the person speaking with Obama might've known her!), since there's little to no verb conjugation or noun declension, but I think they instead use a lot of various prefixes and other additions to make sentences more complex. (Or so I'm told--I never got to a very advanced level, but pretty good for a little blond white kid. ;) )

Like, if you just want to say, "I want to drink some tea," you'd just say, "Saya mau minum teh," which is literally "I want drink tea." "She wants to drink tea," is "dia mau minum teh," so you see that the conjugation doesn't change. And there are no special words for possession--no my, yours, his, etc. "My house" is "rumah saya" which is literally "house I," but since adjectives go after nouns, it becomes an adjective. You can therefore create some fun strings of possession without learning anything new: "my dad's house" is "rumah ayah saya," or "house dad I." :P

Plus, it's not written in any different script, and is basically pronounced as written. The official Indonesian language, btw, is really semi-artificial, since every Indonesian has their local dialect, and "Indonesian" was created to be national, unifying language. (I think it's based largely on the Sundanese dialect, which is one of the major ethnicities on Java where the capital Jakarta is located--don't quote me on that, though.)

On a side note, this is actually something that fans of the West Wing who know about this have always been upset about, since one of the episodes had a large subplot about getting a translator for the Indonesian ambassador, but the translator they got (who didn't look Indonesian at all--looked more like a half-Portuguese/half-Chinese resident of Macau!) told them that "there really is no language called Indonesian" and he didn't speak the specific dialect that the ambassador spoke. So they had this whole thing of the translator spoke Portuguese (I told you he was really from Macau ;) ) to a waiter who happened to speak the dialect who translated for the ambassador, and back. It was really stupid and totally fabricated.

[Botany]

8. Wing nuts all over are having heart attacks

What izz dat foreign talk? Speak American

[Coexist]

9. you are so right.

[Botany]

13. I can speak some Spanish and to hear bush mangle it was kinda brutal

and now to have somebody who spent part of his time in "other countries"
is just awesome.


As for the wing nuts ..... please go ahead and have you heart attacks.

[eleny]

19. More confirmation of their worst nightmares...

Hope the hand wringing keeps 'em busy and out of mischief.

[midnight]

20. Can you imagine.... Remember when Americans were suppose

to have a second language to graduate from H.S.

[spanone]

11. remember when the previous president mocked david greagory for speaking french?

it's so nice to have an inelligent president

[Fire1]

18. Oh, how I love french!

[NOW tense]

17. Freepers are going to Freep out