Forums » Smalltalk » AMA: Multi-Ethnic and Language Barrier

I think Inter-ethnic marriage is not really uncommon (cmiiw), and because my country is a multicultural country, there are a lot of inter-ethic marriage too.

My father is Javanese, and my mother is Sundanese, and like most of ethnicity in Indonesia, Javanese and Sundanese have their own language too, that's totally different from each other. Actually, they have different writing system too.


Javanese


Sundanese

Can I read that? No, I can't, lol.

"What are you?" or "What is your ethnicity?" is a common question in my country, and this kind of question always confuses me because I don't know how to answer. Sometimes I feel an identity crisis about my ethnicity, and inability to speak my own mother language, whether it's Javanese or Sundanese become a big factor of my identity crisis. My father uses Javanese when he speak to his side of family, and my mother uses Sundanese when she speak with her side of family, and they use Sundanese when they speak with each other. But when they speak to me, they uses Indonesian. But when I speak in Indonesian, sometimes people says I have weird accent.

That does seem confusing. Are a lot of people in Indonesia multilingual? Do they teach Sudanese and Javanese in school too?

Hello Aulelei!

Hmm... most of Indonesian can at least speak 2 languages (Indonesian and their ethnic language), so... yes, I think you can say a lot of people in Indonesia are multilingual.

They teach ethnic language at school from elementary school until high school, but what ethnic language do they teach, it depend on where do you live.
In my case, I grew up in a province where majority of citizens are Sundanese, so what I learnt at my school were Sundanese. But, even though I learnt Sundanese formally for 12 years at school, I still can't speak it. Sundanese has level of formality system that Indonesian language doesn't have, and it depend on who you are speaking to, there are 3 different word for one meaning.

For example:

English: Eat
Indonesian: Makan
Sundanese (Informal/talking with friends): Dahar
Sundanese (Formal (humble form)/refer myself when talking to people with higher status/ older people: Neda
Sundanese (Formal (respectful form)/ refer to speaking partner with higher status/ older people: Tuang

It's really hard for me to remember all of those vocabularies.

But lately I think I need to learn more about Sundanese and Javanese since these two languages are actually my own mother tongue, and I want to understand more about my own ethnicity culture.

Thank you for your question!

That's... really interesting actually.

First off I didn't know the names of either language.

And it is wildly different from most countries that have acceptance for other cultures, but you know what the norm is for that country.

I don't know how to phrase some of my questions, so I'm sorry if they come across as rude or ignorant? But, then again I think that's the purpose of the AMA thing... to learn.

That said, Sundanese and Javanese speakers, are their cultures as different as their languages seem to be? Are they much different from those who would Identify as just Indonesian? Well is it a thing that you could just be Indonesian?

Hello lxveisabadword! Feel free to ask anything!

Yes, you can identify yourself as just Indonesian, it's totally okay but, I think it's uncommon. Because our nationality motto is 'Bhinneka Tunggal Ika' which means 'Unity in Diversity', Ethnicity background, languages and cultural differences are something that many Indonesian proud of, and all of Indonesian have their own ethnicity background.

Javanese and Sundanese have different cultures. For example:

1. Social culture
Javanese has aristocratic and feudal hierarchy culture, values harmony and social hierarchy highly. Even until now, in the central of Javanese territory, they have their own independent state that's still ruled by a monarchy, Yogyakarta Sultanate. Meanwhile Sundanese has much less rigid system of social hierarchy.


Yogyakarta Royal Palace

Current King

But there are some similarities too, like their communication style. Both Javanese and Sundanese tend to be indirect in confrontation, because they don't want to hurt somebody's feeling and prefer to avoid conflict.

2. Personality Stereotype
Sundanese people are more friendly, love to joke and egalitarian, while Javanese people tend to be very shy, serious and reserved. But, of course it's only stereotype, and stereotype is not universally valid.

3. Food
Javanese have sweet tooth, and many of Javanese cuisines are sweet, while Sundanese prefer salty food and love raw vegetables.

Example of Javanese cuisine

Example of Sundanese cuisine

4. Culture in Pop Music
Javanese and Sundanese have different characteristic in their pop music. Javanese musics are known to have some mystical vibes in their melody, and one of Sundanese music characteristic is the sound of flute and Sundanese traditional drum play in their songs. Compositions and tuning systems are recognizably different too.

Javanese pop music:

Sundanese pop music:


4. Traditional dance characteristic

Javanese dance movement tend to be calm, structured and soft, while Sundanese dance tend to be more energetic and influenced from pencak silat martial art movement.

Javanese dances:



Sundanese dances:



Thank you for your question! And if you have another question, feel free to ask!