Why can't Sam and Dean speak Sunda?
1. Hello, Merlin fans, by any chance could any of you be so kind as to Britpick/beta 2100 words of SPN fusion AU wherein Arthur and Morgana drive around the UK killing monsters and have family drama? I would be much obliged. :D
2. I'm crossposting this from Dreamwidth because I think there are maybe some folks here to whom the following might be of interest.
When I was writing Indonesian SPN fic, I found myself wanting to write Dean lapsing unthinkingly into Sunda. Sunda is the local language in west Java (WEST SIIIIIIDE), and my family on my mother's side would always lapse into it from Bahasa Indonesia when they are excited or surprised. Because of this (and systemic bias), it's a language I associate with intimacy and high emotion. Sunda!Wikipedia! I mean, I can totally see Dean going, "Dahar euy!" when Sam comes back with take-out.
I dunno how much sense it would make even if it's just a translation trying to capture the 'feel' of things. In the hypothetical world where the Winchesters speaking Sunda makes sense, though, I see Sam speaking less Sunda than Dean. Maybe when they were growing up, Sam and Dean used to speak more Sunda to each other and to their dad, but when Sam went to Stanford, Sunda was one more thing to distance himself from as he embraced the standard language and a standard life. Also, when Sam and Dean are pretending to be cops or whatever, they'd probably have their furtive exchanges in Sunda.
In the USA, this kind of multilingualism seems to be associated almost exclusively with immigrant/multicultural families, which Sam and Dean are kind of not. In Indonesia, people who also speak Sunda, Javanese, Batak, etc. have been there for centuries, but their language has been minoritized and deemed informal anyway. And so maybe this is why Sam and Dean can't speak Sunda, haha -- the sociolinguistic foundations just aren't the same, and the implications of being multilingual are different.
I wonder if this is one of the reasons why there are so many terrible Indonesian translations of things. It seems there is a higher percentage of multilingual people in Indonesia, but literary/translating conventions seem to favor monolingual stories, thus bringing up issues of how to best capture ~authenticity~. Perhaps this is changing, though. A recent Indonesian soap opera, Muslimah, had their characters speaking FOUR languages: Bahasa Indonesia, Sunda, English, and Arabic. There were subtitles. It was glorious, and utter crap, and my mother never missed a single episode.
I still want Dean yelling, "Kumaha atuh!" in frustration when butting heads with Sam, though.
3. Here are some things I read that I enjoyed and agree with: cultural appropriation, ally arrogance, 'strong female character' bullshit.
ETA: JIM BEAVER TWEETING IN INDONESIAN. MY WORLDS ARE FOREVER COLLIDING. \o/
This entry was originally posted at http://whynot.dreamwidth.org/17036.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
2. I'm crossposting this from Dreamwidth because I think there are maybe some folks here to whom the following might be of interest.
When I was writing Indonesian SPN fic, I found myself wanting to write Dean lapsing unthinkingly into Sunda. Sunda is the local language in west Java (WEST SIIIIIIDE), and my family on my mother's side would always lapse into it from Bahasa Indonesia when they are excited or surprised. Because of this (and systemic bias), it's a language I associate with intimacy and high emotion. Sunda!Wikipedia! I mean, I can totally see Dean going, "Dahar euy!" when Sam comes back with take-out.
I dunno how much sense it would make even if it's just a translation trying to capture the 'feel' of things. In the hypothetical world where the Winchesters speaking Sunda makes sense, though, I see Sam speaking less Sunda than Dean. Maybe when they were growing up, Sam and Dean used to speak more Sunda to each other and to their dad, but when Sam went to Stanford, Sunda was one more thing to distance himself from as he embraced the standard language and a standard life. Also, when Sam and Dean are pretending to be cops or whatever, they'd probably have their furtive exchanges in Sunda.
In the USA, this kind of multilingualism seems to be associated almost exclusively with immigrant/multicultural families, which Sam and Dean are kind of not. In Indonesia, people who also speak Sunda, Javanese, Batak, etc. have been there for centuries, but their language has been minoritized and deemed informal anyway. And so maybe this is why Sam and Dean can't speak Sunda, haha -- the sociolinguistic foundations just aren't the same, and the implications of being multilingual are different.
I wonder if this is one of the reasons why there are so many terrible Indonesian translations of things. It seems there is a higher percentage of multilingual people in Indonesia, but literary/translating conventions seem to favor monolingual stories, thus bringing up issues of how to best capture ~authenticity~. Perhaps this is changing, though. A recent Indonesian soap opera, Muslimah, had their characters speaking FOUR languages: Bahasa Indonesia, Sunda, English, and Arabic. There were subtitles. It was glorious, and utter crap, and my mother never missed a single episode.
I still want Dean yelling, "Kumaha atuh!" in frustration when butting heads with Sam, though.
3. Here are some things I read that I enjoyed and agree with: cultural appropriation, ally arrogance, 'strong female character' bullshit.
ETA: JIM BEAVER TWEETING IN INDONESIAN. MY WORLDS ARE FOREVER COLLIDING. \o/
This entry was originally posted at http://whynot.dreamwidth.org/17036.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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We do the same in Javanese. A number of Javanese terminology permeates our daily conversation so much that even relatives from my father's side (who speak no Javenese) even use them now. I speak very little Javanese (none of the elegant version, but rather the market/street style used in Malaysia by people of Javanese descent) but I must say I adore hugely the idea of the boys speaking in it. I have no exposure to the Sunda language, but I can just imagine how awesome it would be to have Dean and Sam arguing with each other in that.
Thanks for sharing Jim Beaver's tweet; it was so cute and totally adorkable (like him speaking Japanese in Yellow Fever).
A recent Indonesian soap opera, Muslimah, had their characters speaking FOUR languages: Bahasa Indonesia, Sunda, English, and Arabic. There were subtitles. It was glorious, and utter crap, and my mother never missed a single episode.
*snerk* A number of the Indonesian sinetrons here also have subtitles. I don't get the modern Jakarta-speak; hence my previous Rano Karno reference (used to adore Indonesian films when Meriam Bellina still played the heroine instead of villain).
Thanks for the links; I agree a lot with the altmuslimah.com article. Sometimes reading "defense" of Muslim women by non-Muslim feminists really made me go "Eh? WTF?"
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how awesome it would be to have Dean and Sam arguing with each other in that.
Right?! I started wondering, like, can I write SPN fic in Indonesian WITHOUT making it an AU? Then I started contemplating a fic where the Winchesters are second- or third-generation immigrants from FOR EXAMPLE Indonesia! Hunting in Indonesia would be such a different enterprise, and probably John Wicaksono waxes nostalgic about it. Maybe the family used to live there, but when the YED killed Mary, John chased in to the US and HERE THEY ARE. There is family drama about Sam becoming too Americanized!
The nature of Dean's self-loathing would be so different. He probably hates that he can't keep Sammy from becoming too Americanized. He probably romanticizes Indonesia and hates it when Sam points out he was only there for the first 6 years of his life so what does he know about it anyway. Maybe he has a vaguely disdainful resignation wrt his 'stranger in a strange land' situation. And would he be a womanizer to the extent that Dean is? COULD he be?
If the Winchesters were Indonesian immigrants in the USA, can this still be a story about small-town Americana + road trip + monsters? Can Sam and Dean pull off the cop/FBI shtick as often? Maybe they would focus more on jobs that affect members of the immigrant community. Also, John would would totally have taught Sam and Dean SILAT. \o/
I don't think the hunter in Indonesia would be as secretive, since people tend to be more open-minded about mahluk halus and the mystical world. I imagine they'd be like badass dukuns.
A number of the Indonesian sinetrons here also have subtitles.
Oh hmm! What language are the characters speaking on-screen? My modern-anything speak is abysmal, and largely learned from old Kawanku and Gadis magazines.
Sometimes reading "defense" of Muslim women by non-Muslim feminists really made me go "Eh? WTF?"
I know what you mean. Some of the empowering feminist rhetoric I read, I swear, it makes me feel even less empowered, haha. It's like, these are not the things you need to protect me from!
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Naturally, I can't find a link to it to save my life, but IF you can find it, I think you would find the comments to it very interesting as people extrapolated how non-caucasian Sam and Dean would live/hunt/etc.
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Still can't find it, damnit. Don't even know where to ask for it..
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OMG LOL ROTF LMAO. *envisions JDM snarling in Bahasa Indonesia*
The dilemma you propose here wrt the Winchesters being 2nd and 3rd gen immigrants can work. Of course if we work in the context of Indonesia and the general acceptance of the supernatural in Indonesia it will be wildly AU but with great promise. Sundal bolong transplanted would give la llorona a run for her money. :D And of course working with mantera and kemenyan and sharpened yellow bamboo would make things slightly difficult, y/y?
And would he be a womanizer to the extent that Dean is? COULD he be?
Interesting point. If Dean were to adhere to the cultural norms of Indonesia (re his romanticisation) it would make things difficult. Flirtatious, yes but sexual engagement? *rubs chin*
And would he be a womanizer to the extent that Dean is? COULD he be?
OMG YES!
The Indonesian sinetron commonly use modern Bahasa Indonesia which is similar but very different to Bahasa Melayu used in Malaysia. Like the "word "kapan" used to mean "when" in Indonesia, means burial shroud in Malaysia. And the use of verbalised acronyms is something not usually done in Malaysia; some is downright comical (e.g.Pundek = Penolong Direktur; in Bahasa Melayu it means genitalia). So mos def subtitles. *grin*
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I think
DeanDimas would sexually engage. I think he'd resort to prostitutes more than Dean does though. His romanticization of Indonesia is not manifested in a dedication to social mores, I think, but in a dedication to his family, and the perpetuation of the feeling of family (or at least an attempt at it). So he'll speak more Indonesian thanSamSatri, he'll tease Satri in Sundanese, he'll follow his dad to the ends of the earth, he will be quick to play the blame-the-bule game, but he is also unrelenting in his adaptation to this American life, because he has to be, because Dimas is a survivor and a fighter and to be between two worlds is, after all, nothing new.no subject
It wasn't until I was studying the history of Orientalism in a college anthropology class that I realized (with no little amount of horror) that the same applies to me, racially speaking. I'm white and middle class and American; as much as I want to help and CAN help fight racisim, there will always be a part of me that is blind to it. I'm racist, not because I don't fight it, but because my own racial privilege gets in the way and I simply cannot see it sometimes. Which is why I don't get the defensiveness of white people being called out for being racist - of course we are, it is how our culture is structured. The important thing is to listen, and find out how we are being racist today, because no matter how hard we try there will always be some aspect of that dynamic we aren't aware of until someone points it out.
And when I was younger I was very Orientalist - "oooh how exotic! etc." I suppose I still am, I'm just aware of it and try to walk back over to the "appreciation" side of the room when I see myself doing it. Which is why that article was so interesting, because as hard as I've tried I've never found that line, and it makes sense to me that the line doesn't really exist. While that means I'll never really succeed at doing the right thing, it also means there will always be value (to myself, and I hope, for others) in trying.
Also totally loved the strong female character essay, too! I'm reposting both of these links!
As for Sunda, I love your ideas about it, especially with Sam abandoning it at college (as many second generation kids often abandon their parents' native language in order to fit in).
Ramblings: It does occur to me that children who have immigrant caretakers/nannies often pick up the secondary language. While obviously John wouldn't have hired a nanny for the boys (which would be an interesting AU right there, a very wealthy John Winchester...Dean would have a jet instead of the Impala...but I digress...) it's possible to imagine that he would have left the boys with an immigrant hunting family when they were young, who just happened to be Indonesian. Or! Make Bobby's wife live after her possession (maybe it kills their child, which is what turns Bobby into a hunter) and SHE is Indonesian, so Bobby and her always speak Sunda in the house as a "secret adult language" thinking the boys don't understand , but Sam and Dean pick it up that way.
Which, hmmm....probably suggestions you don't need! But I love the idea. ♥
...and I exceeded the character limit. 1/2
The RaceFail '09 and cultural appropriation debates were one of the awesomer highlights of Last Year In Fandom, and they definitely taught me a lot and made me think. Some of the arguments didn't sit well with me - as is the nature of the beast - and these arguments were the ones that expressed a more vehement "NO TOUCHING" attitude. 'Cos I kinda want people to come jump in and get messy. I want them to learn dumb stuff about my culture, because I see that as learning dumb stuff in elementary school, which are inevitably deconstructed and proven false the more you grow and learn. (Granted, this doesn't always happen...) I don't want people to be scared; I just want them to be okay being wrong sometimes.
Maybe I'm kind of coming from a weird place, I dunno, 'cos as an expat I grew up between cultures. I'm not usually representative of the default, and yet I'm still pretty privileged. There are three countries I call home, so I am both detached and prone to romanticization. There weren't a lot of RaceFail essays dealing with expats. The RaceFail essays were also largely from an American POV, and 'Intersectionality Dreaming' has a blogpost SOMEWHERE about differences in attitudes wrt appropriation between Asian-Americans and uh Asian-Asians I guess. I wish I can find it 'cos it made me do a contemplative headtilt. The gist was, Asian-Americans tend to be more defensive about appropriation because they are minoritized, and we Asian-Asians should try to understand that; the systemic biases are different. (I would like to disclaim and say yes yes I know 'Asia' can be a weird blanket term, but that is another rant for another time.)
I think I'm largely fine with my culture being bandied around and traded for parts because I want some goddamn presence, but ALSO BECAUSE my culture(s) is a vast and complex thing, and it has weathered much. I think it is vast enough to loan out parts and not feel diminished by this. That being said, I reckon I can begin to see where American minorities are coming from with the defensive anti-appropriation, because minoritization makes these cultures not vast and not complex. Perhaps there is more a sense of claustrophobia because of this. The 'Asian' cultural experience, stateside, is not ubiquitous.
That strong female character essay is pretty class. Oftentimes when I read stuff about how "THIS is a strong female character", I am generally unimpressed. Two-dimensional female characters are alienating no matter how many guns they shoot or how early they got their PhD from Oxford.
Re: ...and I exceeded the character limit. 1/2
But yeah, I do not get the whole "NO TOUCHING" thing at all, even though I do understand where the mentality comes from. Again, I take a lot of my lessons from being on the "other side" of the coin as a feminist, and so I wonder, do I really not want men to ever write women characters ever again? Well, some men, sure thing. :) But on the whole, no, there is value to be gained from multiple perspectives, as long as everyone approaches the matter with respect and mutual consideration. And that means accepting the idea that sometimes, we will be wrong. All of us. It's part of the learning process.
What do mean, "utopia"???? *pouts*
Digression: I first wore hijab when I was considering converting to Islam; I was studying a lot and listening to the Koran (some of the most amazing female reciters are Indonesian, if I remember correctly) and wanted to know how I felt about the whole issue for myself. As a staunch (Western, white) feminist, you can see how this was something of a challenge for me. And? I LOVED IT. I enjoyed it, I thought it was beautiful, I thought I looked great. But I chose not to convert, and...so now, I want to wear hijab, but the issue is SO leaden with cultural meaning I'm not sure how I could possibly get away with it. Is that appreciation, or appropriation? Even I'm not really sure, tbh, so I err on the side of caution and don't wear them anymore. *sad* I own beautiful hijabs.
I'm fascinated by the comparison you made vis a vis "vast and complex" vs. "claustrophobic", which I think has a lot of merit but I'm in no position to judge properly. Interesting ideas, though.
The whole female character issue is one that I return to with my fascination about the Mary Sue Phenomenon. There is so much bias in fandom against original female characters - I'm just as guilty - because of the Mary Sue curse, and there seems a lot of similar issues to that as were mentioned in the essay.
Re: ...and I exceeded the character limit. 1/2
Yeah, fandom is hypersensitive to signs of Mary Sueness, I don't know what to think about it anymore. But you don't even need an OC to self-insert. I've read characterizations of, say, Dean Winchester that make me feel like I just saw a stranger come out of the bathroom with their skirt accidentally tucked into their waistband, showing their underwear to the world.
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And maybe in the middle of this drunken bilingual exchange, Sam chuckles and says, "Look at us."
Dean raises his eyebrows. "'Napa?"
"We're," Sam says, and the alcohol is fuzzing over his thought, he isn't sure what he wants to say until he says it: "We're always two things. You and me."
Something snags across Dean's features, crumpling it slightly. "Wadul itu," he snaps. "Kita sekeluarga. Sedarah."
And Sam supposes that is the difference him and his brother. To Dean, family is the least common denominator, the elemental indivisible unit. To Sam, there are always more divisions to be had, always more ways to break apart. Family can always be splintered into shards, and he is still trying to not be afraid of this fact.
Also if the Winchesters were Indonesian, people'd have to stop fixating on Dean's green eyes already hahaha.
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*gasps for air* Please?
And actually, I say, don't translate. For me, mono-linguist that I am, it is interesting to read the dynamics behind what is being said, and it really makes me THINK about the cultural shift as opposed to just glossing over it on my way to the translation.
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It's the first conversation Satri has had with his father in four years, and he's back to referring to himself in the third person. It's weird. He tries, at first, to use aku, and when that felt weird, he tries saya, which just felt stiff and awkward. Four years without this language in his mouth and now its pronouns are playing hard-to-get. Satri feels stupid saying, "Satri mau bikin kopi, mau nggak?" but it's the one that rolls off the tongue most easily. He remembers when he doesn't feel stupid talking like this, when replacing I and me and mine with his own name was not alienating, merely precise.
"Bapak senang sekali, nak," his father is saying, "Satri bersama Dimas lagi."
"Yeah, it's been a wild ride," Satri replies, twiddling with the coffeemaker. "Or at least, Dimas makes sure it is."
"Dimas gimana?" says his brother, exiting the bathroom to the chorus of a flushing toilet.
"I was just saying," Satri says, "kamu nyupirnya ngaco."
"Enak aja, 'loe nyupirnya kaya orang lagi tidur," Dimas smirks, and Satri is smiling, and their father chuckles to himself. The relief in the air takes on a shine of contentment.
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Very interesting this and I'd love to read more. Though I think they would have to add pepper to the salt they're using? That's what the bomohs here use, salt and pepper, to ward off demons and bad jins.
And Sunda is completely different than Javanese then? We have different dialects in the states here but we're still able to understand each other.
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I'm sure their arsenal would be much different, though I'd have to do research before I can get into the specifics of how. Jimat-jimat, mungkin. Oh, and definitely a keris!
Completely different. Javanese script is Sanskrit-based, and the language is a central Java thing. Sunda is a west Java thing. I can't speak/understand Javanese at all. Bahasa Indonesia is the bridging language.
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IN UR JOURNALZ; TL;DRING AT UR POSTZ
EXCEEDED THE COMMENT LIMIT D: D:
Re: EXCEEDED THE COMMENT LIMIT D: D:
neighbors!Mulder&Susan is such one of my happy places, I wanna carry it around in my pocket and take it out on stressful days.
Re: IN UR JOURNALZ; TL;DRING AT UR POSTZ
And yaaaa the insularity, the years of living out of each other's pockets, the dialectic that shapes the rhetoric between them largely inapplicable to anything else. I was thinking that, since they moved to the US pretty early, they'd have a pretty good grasp of English. Probably their accents come out when drunk, especially Dean's. And how DO they fit in? Or do they avoid having to fit in? I wonder what their favorite cover story is.
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You just made my morning.
I can totally see him saying, "[insert expletive of choice here] sia!"
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HAHAHA YES. Absolutely!
All Dean really wants to do is find that monster and kill it already, but Sam, ya, dia lagi nyeroscos Inggris aja, saying, "Look, there's a lot of contradictory lore on this thing, let me just go through it all." Research kabeh, with this one. Dean nggak bisa ngambek sih. He doesn't have the patience to be so thorough, and even if Dean were to get frustrated, Sam udah biasa dicarekkan kakaknya. It would have no effect.