Indonesian not so easy

Indonesian not so easy

I did not see the Sunday Jakarta Post, so therefore did not
see GS Edwin's article, which Ben Dowson thoroughly agreed with
in his letter Disinterested or lazy (March 12). I think Dowson
makes rather too sweeping a generalization when he claims that
anyone who cannot pick up Indonesian in six months must be "half-
witted, lazy or plain disinterested".

As one who is almost certainly old enough to be the
grandfather of these two (presumably) young men, I would like to
say that none of these pejorative adjectives applies to me. After
many years in this country, I confess that my knowledge of the
language is still minimal, but not for any of the reasons that
Dowson adduces. Half-witted I am not; I hold a responsible job in
a very high-flying firm. Lazy, I am not, because I work very
hard, and have done so all my time in Indonesia. Disinterested, I
certainly am not -- I am married to a delightful Indonesian, and
I work with cultured and intelligent Indonesians. I am also on
very friendly terms with my neighbors in our kampong, so I am not
one of the arrogant types Dowson mentions. As for luxurious
mansions and limousines, I live in a modest house, built to my
own requirements, and my means of transport is an equally modest
Kijang.

It is not for want of trying that I am not fluent in
Indonesian, which I would dearly love to be. This is particularly
frustrating for me, since in my younger days I was something of a
linguist. Fortunately I was a classical scholar at one of
England's leading schools and at Magdalen College, Oxford. Latin
and Greek, at both of which I was highly proficient, are the best
foundations on which to build a knowledge of language, English
included.

The result is that I can still get along very well in French,
with basic German, Spanish, Italian and Norwegian. But
Indonesian, apart from the words borrowed from European
languages, has nothing syntactically, grammatically or verbally
in common with western languages, which would make learning
easier for somebody like me.

Dowson and Edwin might also find difficulty in learning a new
language when they are older. Indonesian, as I well know, is a
simple language to learn if one can remember a few basic rules
and a couple of thousands words. It's all a question of memory,
and memory becomes fallible as one grows older, as both these
gentlemen will find out if they ever make it past three score
years and 10.

JAMES RICHARDS

Jakarta