I have been exposed to sundanese for years and still don't speak it.
Some people here seem to insist on speaking Sundanese even though I reply in Indonesian.
@gombang as long can understand 😂 but over here we're used to gagak bercakap sama helang behaviour. Is it unusual?
Sometimes they will speak Mandailing to me and i respond in Minangkabau or Indonesian.
In this case though I am sure the villagers don't really know about my ability in Sundanese. I guess they just assume if you live here you must learn the language 😬
@gombang oh that could definitely be a thing right... I remember once in Bali a local told me if I barely speak they'll at least think I'm Jakartan because I'll give myself away not knowing the local language lol
@gombang
Taxi driver the other day had pretty much zero English, but I asked him how many languages he did speak and he replied, Acehnese, Bahasa Nasional (Indonesia), Javanese, and Sundanese. Which impressed the hell out of me.
My late mother also didn't speak any English but was trilingual (two local languages + Indonesian)
- replies
- 1
- announces
- 0
- likes
- 1
@gombang
Yeah, that just seems to be the norm for so many people in this region. (Also, sorry for your mom's passing. That's tough.) The linguistic resources that people can call on are amazing to me, and the code switching can be crazy. I eavesdropped on one extended family by the pool at a hotel in Medan moving fluidly through Chinese, Indonesian (Malay? I can't distinguish really), and English. It's fun!
@ncoca @gombang
Oh, sure. I can see that. I just don't have the linguistic chops or knowledge of, I guess I should say, Sinitic languages? You know, but for anyone else, I went looking. Here is one comparison from Taiwan. https://youtu.be/uPNHhxTIZNA?si=IFtZkmFB71hfct85