One of the great joys of teaching online is the magnificent encounter with strangers. One of my pair of students is a philosopher and a linguist from one of the best universities in the world. I thoroughly enjoy every single one of the class because of how utterly intriguing their questions are. Recently the philosopher asked me about the functions of the Indonesian prefix ter-. When paired with a verb, there are three main functions of this prefix: Stative: it describes a state or a situation as it is Buku ini terletak di meja. The book lies on the table. (the…
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Introduction The catalyst for the end of the world according to Blindness is an epidemic of blindness. This contagious infection differs from the common pandemic plague in apocalyptic literature. Unlike the bubonic plague in Camus’s La Peste, blindness does not kill the infected. It merely cripples. Nevertheless, the result of this defect is still horrific. When blindness begins to spread, there is a pandemonium of men trying to avoid the contaminated and of men trying to cope with not seeing. In order to prevent blindness from spreading, a vague governmental figure isolates the contaminated people in a derelict mental asylum.…
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A memória de casa veio de formas inesperadas depois de muitos anos vivendo em outro lugar. Me visitou numa noite tranquila, como uma pinha que subitamente caiu em cima da cabeça minha. Visitou em uma imagem de um cachorro falante, não real, por ele foi um desenho animado, gordo e de gravata. Estava falando em uma fazenda, e parece-me que eu o conheço, mas quem, exatamente, foi cachorro? Parece que foi saído da minha infância… Me lembro. Roger, se chama. Sim, naquela noite, com a luz fraca de lâmpada, examinei minuciosamente esta lembrança vaga, como descascar uma cebola. A história…
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Tell me why you called me yours and remind me of the divine daughtership of a father who never left for another woman Remind me of a lover’s touch that marks one’s soul with full abandon yet without abandonment, leaving her blameless — a clean slate.
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You would think the first colour To pluck out of the palette Would be a salty odour Besides a mermaid’s palate; But the sea is barely blue Instead, she’s a continuum Of yellows to greenish hues Hundreds of yarn on a loom How does the eye fail to see The minuscule lines of light Tracing the crevices of the sea? It‘s only dawned on my sight With the strokes of this sprite
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The Bangka-Belitung province is located east of South Sumatra and it is easily accessible by plane from Jakarta. Return flights tend to cost just over Rp 1,000,000 and if you want to reduce that carbon footprint (which I am very guilty of), there is a boat (PT Pelni Lawit)that leaves twi ce a month from Tanjung Priok port in Jakarta to Tanjung Pandan, the main city of Belitung. I heard that it’s cheap to go by boat, but not many people know about it. I suggest looking into PT Pelni Lawit website for more information about the price and the…
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There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
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Tak kenal maka tak sayang. Tak sayang maka tak cinta. Knowing leads to caring. Caring leads to love. – Indonesian proverb Upon choosing this proverb, I struggled to translate it into English. It’s a well-known proverb in Indonesia and it basically asks this question: “If you don’t try to get to know someone, how can you care about them?” Equally, if you don’t care about them, how can you love them? The reason why it’s tricky to translate is because of these words: tahu vs kenal (to know) and sayang vs cinta (to love). What’s the difference? Tahu vs Kenal…
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Kacang lupa kulitnya. Peanuts forget their shells. – Indonesian proverb This proverb is used to describe someone who has forgotten its roots. I’d just like to share some useful phrases to talk about our background, including our family, hometown, nationality, and heritage. Latar belakang: background 1. Kamu lahir di mana? = What’s your birthplace? You [were born] where? lahir (verb) = to be born Saya lahir di Bandung. I was born in Bandung. 2. Kamu lahir tanggal berapa? = What’s your date of birth? You [were born] date which? tanggal (noun) = date Saya lahir tanggal 31 Juli 1991. I…
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The word linguistics is composed of two morphemes linguist and –ics. The base morpheme linguist derives from the Latin word lingua (“language” or “tongue”) whilst the suffix -ics tends to generate nouns that refer to fields of knowledge and practice. Does that explain anything about linguistics? No, anyone can google that. Does it sound ‘linguisticky’? Probably, especially if you trace back lingua to ,the Old Latin ,dingua, ,which has even been analysed down to its Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root. But that’s not linguistics. That’s etymology (the study of the origins of words), and it’s only a minuscule aspect of the whole…
