This page provides online resources
to assist users in carrying out web-based research on Indonesia and East Timor. Suggestions for additional links are always
welcome!
Edited by Elizabeth Coville (ecoville@gmail.com)
What's Up on the Web:
A fortnightly update on
items of special interest to researchers on Indonesia and East Timor and
accessible through links on this page.
# 6 - Learning Indonesian
Like many of my generation, I became an Indonesia-phile through the process of studying
bahasa Indonesia, first in the U.S. and then in Indonesia. But this happened before the advent
of the internet, and so I am in awe of the language-learning (and -refreshing) resources
available through the web.
It was when I was writing about the magazine Inside Indonesia last month that I stumbled on
their learning activities section. Go to the left sidebar, scroll down to Resources, and then to
Learning.This interactive feature was created in 1998 (issues #53 through #57) to accompany
articles in the magazine (actually, an insert in the print version). Aimed at intermediate students,
it works well as a language-refresher, and I wish it had continued in its online form.
For beginners and up, the best site I have found is the Indonesia page of the well-known
Northern Illinois University's SEAsite. For those who prefer to receive information in a narrative
form, click here for their Guide to SEAsite Indonesia.
A rich meta-resource for Indonesian language is on the Look at Indonesia page of Waruno
Mahdi's site. The section on language is divided into four parts: resources, websites, study
courses for learning Indonesian offline, and mailing lists.
Finally, I visited another meta-resource, John MacDougall's Simplicity blog and did two things:
first I looked at the alphabetical section of links called Language, which is on the right sidebar,
currently between Our Net and Radio Stations. Next, I clicked on the Wondrous Things postings
and did a search for 'language'. This called up the useful comments he has made about specific
sites, such as Polly Glot, Translators Workplace, and Toggle Text, which are all clickable there
on the sidebar as well. The sidebar also includes clickable recommended resources (i.e. "best
dictionary, grammar, etc").
The overall effect of a morning spent surfing the web looking for evidence of bahasa Indonesia
was to reassure me that there is plenty of good material out there being pulled together by
individuals and groups such as the creators of these sites I have reviewed. But because of this
abundance, all the more I ask myself why Americans often know nothing about this language.
See for instance Useful Expressions and Greetings in 26 Languages . I guess Indonesian must
be the 27th!
Readers -- if you exist -- please send me more suggestions for language resources, and I will
incorporate them in future columns.
Posted July 6, 2006
@ 2000 Antara Kita. Southeast Asian Studies
Program, Yamada House, Ohio University, Athens, OH
45701-2979, USA.
This site was last updated on June 22, 2006