Halo! We are back with another vocabulary topic! Let’s remember the words that we have learned, and pick one word that is your favorite one. Get any?
We know that some Indonesian words are a loanword from other countries for example and the most common, Dutch. We also shared the same root with Malay and some word might sounds familiar because adopted from English.
So pick one from a lot of interesting words take some times, eh? Let’s have a little throwback trip to what we have known so far.
Let’s start with slang words!
Slang in Indonesia can start from the basic one like ‘Gue‘ – ‘Lo‘ to substitutes ‘Saya’ – ‘Kamu’ (‘I’ – ‘Your’), the popular one like ‘Jomblo‘ to point out ‘Single person’ and ‘Galau‘ which refers to ‘Feeling blue, or sad’, until the offensive one like ‘Anjing‘ for ‘Damn’ or ‘Fuck you’, and ‘Goblok‘ which means ‘Stupid’.
You might use Gue-Lo a lot in your informal conversation, and find a lot of Jomblo and Galau jokes on the internet, along with hateful or funny comments with ‘Anjing’ and ‘Goblok’.
Talking about hateful speech, how about the curse word?
Well, sometimes we don’t use curse words as a hate expression, we can also use it in our daily conversation with close-friend too. For example, ‘Jancuk‘ or ‘Cuk‘ for short, means Fuck which we like to put it randomly at the end of the sentence.
Another example, ‘Asu‘, ‘Anjing‘, or ‘Anying‘ which basically has the same meaning; dog. Again, this can be used as hateful speech (something that should not be your favorite type of speech!) and also use casually around your close friend. Kind of weird, right?
Okay, enough with the offensive words! Now let’s jump right into other popular words that might be your favorite one.
‘Baper‘ for example. That must be something familiar, isn’t it? ‘Baper’ is actually come from ‘bawa perasaan’ or ‘carried away with emotion’. If you like to listen to a sad song while looking at the car window when raining, then you probably described as Baper.
Or, if you like to stalk your ex or mind people business a lot, you can be described as ‘Kepo‘ or ‘Nosey’
After the popular one, how about the ‘forgotten’ word but actually has beautiful meaning?
Anyway, do you like cats? If yes, then you probably get excited to know that Indonesian have a specific one word to describe the color of cats! It is ‘Candramawa‘ which means black and white cat’s fur.
It is even literally as ‘the one who carried the moon’. Do you feel any Sailor Moon vibe here? My fellow cat’s person, where are you at?
Another example of beautiful word is ‘Renjana‘. It means passion, lust, and love, or strong affection for longing and missing. That’s too deep for a single and humble word, right?
So take notes, folks! Maybe you can use it for your next romantic phrase for your boy/ girlfriend.