Podcast #35 - The Brief History of Manadonese [English Audio]

 

Hello and welcome to Bet.ID Podcast. The podcast where I talk about Indonesian language and things related to it so that you can improve your listening comprehension and get to know more about Indonesia and its culture. I’m Jeff

                This is the episode 35 of this podcast. In this episode, I’m gonna be telling you about my first language, Manadonese. So I’m not really into history nor I have the qualification to explain about history yet I just wanna share with you the brief history of my first language. But before we jump into it, if you wanna read the transcript for this episode, you can click the link down below. Let’s start

                Manadonese has been used in the area of North Celebes now for a long time. Manadonese was a lingua franca in this area. But some say that Manadonese is a broken Indonesian language because of the vocabulary both languages share. The main difference of both languages is the grammar.

                For example, if you wanna say, ‘I am going to go the market with my mom to buy some vegetables and some fruits.’ In Indonesian it would be, ‘Hari ini saya pergi ke pasar dengan ibu saya untuk berbelanja sayur dan buah.’ Whilst in Manadonese, it would be, ‘Ni hari kita deng ta pe mama ada pi pasar for mo ba beli sayor deng buah.’ If you only listen to it, maybe you find it hard to differentiate both languages but if you have a look at the sentences, you will find many similar words yet a slightly different grammar. Many say that Manadonese is not a language but it’s just one of Indonesian dialects, is it?

                The fact is, long time before Indonesian even exists, Manadonese does and already being used to communicate. If you’ve heard my podcast about the brief history of Indonesian, you might know that Indonesian language officially established in the year of 1928. Manadonese has existed since the 15^th century. So it has existed for a long time.

                Why, then, it has much Indonesian vocabulary? Actually, it’s not Indonesian vocabulary but Malay. Since both languages derived from Malay. So, how did Manadonese exist?

                It began in the 15^th century. At the time, in Nusantara, people used Malay to communicate. The fact is, Manadonese didn’t exist for first time in Celebes but Maluku. If you don’t know where Maluku is, you can take a look at Indonesian map.

                In those years, there were many merchants from the western Nusantara as well as the merchants from foreign country such as Arab even European countries like Portugal and Spain. So they were selling stuff such as fabric, clothes, and so on. They were selling it in Maluku. Since it that time, Malay was a lingua franca so in order to help them communicate with the local when they were selling their stuff, they need to learn Malay.

                Most of the merchants didn’t speak Malay. They spoke their own language like Spanish, Portuguese, and many others. But they were learning Malay. What do you think would it be for two people whose native language is not English yet they speak English to communicate to each other?

                In that situation you don’t need to be speaking in perfect grammar, do you? As long as you can understand each other then it’s pretty enough. It was the case with the merchants since their native language was not Malay, as long as they can communicate with the local people then it’s alright. So that kind of not-perfect Malay was called Melayu Bazar which had easier grammar compared to the original Malay language

                Beside the changing of the grammar of this language, it also absorbed so much vocabulary from Portuguese, Spanish, and even Dutch as well as the vocabulary of the local languages in Maluku. For example this language uses ngoni which is a word from one of the local languages in Maluku for they. It uses kadera for chair and it came from Portuguese and many more.

                An example of simplified grammar of this language is the difference of the affixes it uses. For example in Malay and Indonesian, to say I give you food is memberi makan. But in this language, you just need to exchange all the meng- prefix with kase. Memberi makan is kase makang. And the process of simplifying grammar kept going for years. Some time later the merchants came to Manado but not just they came to bring their things to sell, they also brought the language to Manado.

                Originally the people in Manado spoke their own local language. So when the merchants came to Manado, they spoke in Melayu Bazar language and it started to assimilating again with the local language in Manado and it is known as bahasa Manado now. So the conclusion is Manadonese or bahasa Manado is not a broken language since it has its own simplified grammar rule. I can call it the Creole Malay Language.

                Sampe skarang torang masih pake noh tu bahasa Manado kalo mo bicara deng teman cuma kwa for tu bahasa Manado mo ada bentuk tulisan nyanda talalu umum dang. Makanya sampe skarang tu bentuk tertulis bahasa Manado itu nyanda sama dang.

                I was speaking in Manadonese which means, “Sampai sekarang orang-orang di Manado masih pakai bahasa Manado untuk bicara sama teman. Hanya saja, bentuk tertulis bahasa Manado tidak umum digunakan. Makanya sampai sekarang bentuk tertulis bahasa Manado itu bervariasi.”

                I guess that’s pretty much everything I wanna tell you. What do you think? Leave your thoughts down below wherever you’re listening to this podcast. If you’d like to learn Indonesian one on one, you can click the link down below. Sampai jumpa!