So happy to be back writing something other than academic research papers \<^o^>/
Anyway, this time, I’m writing a quite easy topic: family relations in Bahasa Indonesia.
Similar to other countries, we have several ways to refer to our family members. We have the formal ones, the archaic (?) ones, and the ones that we adapt from another language. Some of my Chinese-descent friends even still use the Chinese way of referring to their older family members, which I personally don’t know which specific clan they belong to nor what those words even mean.
To simplify this time’s topic, I’ll write the terms in a family tree, which in Indonesia can be called pohon keluarga or silsilah keluarga.
I’ll start with the two furthest, which is buyut and cucu buyut/cicit. Note that both has the word buyut and both are three generations away from the me (saya) point. In reality, we also use them to refer anyone older or younger than those generations. In a way, buyut has the same connotation with ‘ancestor’, though depending on the context it’s more correct to translate ‘ancestor’ as leluhur.
Next is the grandparents, though we don’t have a word for ‘grandparent’ itself. We either refer them directly as kakek-nenek which means ‘grandfather-grandmother’ or use just one of them as a representative. Usually, as, we have two sets of grandparents, we differentiate their title by using a word from another language. For example, I call my grandmothers oma (from Dutch) and mak (from Chinese I think, because in Javanese the word means ‘mother’ as opposed to ‘grandmother’), whilst some other may call their grandmothers as grandma, granny, or some other title. Whilst for grandfathers, some alternative titles are opa (also from Dutch), engkong/kong, grandpa, or other same-meaning words.
Next, before going to what we call keluarga inti or main family, we’ll look at the cousins first. We call our uncle as paman, and our aunt as bibi. These are actually in very formal language, and we commonly use om for uncle and tante for aunt. Again, some family might adapt different languages and culture to refer to their uncles and aunts. Especially those descended from Chinese root, they have separate way to call the older sister of one’s mother, the younger sister of one’s mother, the older sister of one’s father, the younger sister of one’s father, and even their spouses may have different titles (which my family no longer use, thank God). In addition, om and tante can also be used to refer to any older people, especially those around one’s parents’ generation, without having to have any ties. Be careful with the word bibi though, as some people use them to refer to their middle-aged maids.
Our uncle and aunt’s siblings are, of course, our parents. In Bahasa Indonesia, ‘parents’ is translated as orang tua, which literally means ‘old person’. To call one’s father, the formal term is ayah or bapak, though bapak or simply pak can also be used to respectfully call any man above a certain age (a bit like the title ‘mister’). Informally, there are tons of ways to call one’s father, including papa (from Chinese), papi, and daddy. For mothers, we formally call them ibu, which usage is that like bapak where it can be used to respectfully call any woman above a certain age (like ‘ma’am’ or ‘Mrs.’). The informal ways to call one’s mother includes mama (from Chinese) and mami.
Next, we’ll start the discussion of our generation’s family members from our uncle and aunt’s children, or our cousin. We refer to them as sepupu, which can be preceded by kakak or adik or the equivalents to signify their age relative to us.
Now, what’s the equivalent of kakak and adik? From the diagram, we know that kakak means ‘older sibling’ whilst adik means ‘younger sibling’. This formal way of calling one’s siblings (or saudara) disregard the gender of said siblings. However, some families have their own culture and, thus, their own way of calling their siblings. For example, an older brother can be called koko or koh (usually Chinese) or mas (usually Javanese), whilst an older sister can be called cicik or cece (usually Chinese) or mbak (usually Javanese). Again, all these words can also be used to call anyone around their age, even when they’re not directly related to you. The words mas and mbak are even commonly used to call a young house maid, or servers or clerks in restaurants, stores, and almost all establishment, particularly in Java Island, as most people who occupied those positions are of Javanese descent.
The last person in our generation, at least according to the diagram, is our spouse. We call our husband as suami and our wife as istri. FYI, our spouse’s parents, or our parents-in-law, are our mertua, as in ayah mertua (‘father-in-law’) and ibu mertua (‘mother-in-law’). For our spouse’s siblings, I don’t know if there’s a particular way of calling them. As far as I know, they become our kakak and adik.
Next, for the generation after ours. Our siblings’ children, or our nephews and niece, are called keponakan. Once again, this term is also gender-neutral. Whereas for our own child, we call them anak, or if one wants to be more specific they can call their son as putra and their daughter as putri. Note that putri also means ‘princess’ in Bahasa Indonesia.
Next, when our child marries, their spouse will be our menantu. Some people said menantu laki to call their son-in-law and menantu perempuan to call their daughter-in-law. On the other hand, their parents are called our besan. You can say that your grandparents are each other’s besan.
Last, we have our grandchild, which is usually called as cucu. My grandma sometimes called us as their putu, though I’m not exactly sure of its meaning nor its origin. Both are also gender-neutral on themselves.
Right, I think that covered the familial relations in Indonesia. You might realize that a lot of our words are gender-neutral, at least compared to their commonly-used English-equivalent. We do emphasize a bit more on seniority, as we are still an Asian country. The way one refer to their family members may be influenced by many factors, such as family culture and habit, race, religion, place of domicile, and (their parents’) education and preference.
That’s all for this post I wrote down after so long.
See you next topic, hopefully not too long from now~
Trivia: For animals, we call their parents, especially the mother, as their induk.
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