Okay. Sometimes, I can't understand what's the reason I choose English over Indonesian language. I mean, Indonesia is my mother tongue, right? So it should--should--fit better for me. Or so to say.
But as I think more about it, there are the differences between these two languages:
1. English tends to be cooler. It's more straight, more complicated and more strained, with plenty of rules called "grammar". On the other hand, Indonesian is more "barbaric". Though there're some rules to organize sentences (subject + verb + object), there's no tenses that makes it more complicated. These rules aren't named grammar, either: it has special name called "EYD" (short for "Ejaan yang Disempurnakan" or Perfected Spelling).
2. English is more suitable for serious stories. This might be because of subjective perception in the culture, of course, but the novels and novellas work better in English. The reason is probably because this language has more "everyday" vocabularies than Indonesian.
3. HOWEVER, Indonesian language works better for humor stories. One reason is because Indonesian language has a big collection of swearing words, coming from different languages in Indonesia's subculture. Even Sundanese language (one of the native languages) has its own swearing words, and then combined to the swearing words in Javan language and the other native languages. As a result, Indonesia's national language itself has much more bad words than English. This is kinda embarrassing, actually. -.-"
4. English humor needs more twisted ideas to be funny. Unlike Indonesian that can use "absolutely inappropriate" words to be funny, swearing words in English are more straightforward and unimaginative. The most often heard, of course, is word f*ck, motherf*cker, c*cks*cker and such words. Compared to Indonesian: Anj*ng, Bab*, T*i, Bangs*t, Kampr*t and so much more. Swearing words in English are similar to one another (the 'f' words to the 's' words), but Indonesian is more varied. I can't believe I'm talking about this... -.-"
5. Even the accent itself has an impact. Indonesian accent is more varied in its "up" and "down". This means that Indonesian people can use different types of voice to give different meanings. This works very excellently for irony and similar stuffs. English, on the other hand, is mostly higher than Indonesian. There's no "down": just up, up and more up. It's difficult to understand if you haven't experienced both languages by yourself. :-P
Language is part of the codes in a society, or so I've heard. So, it is possible that language also represents the society it belongs to. And because these two societies (Indonesia and English-speaking countries) are different, the languages must also have different impacts. I wonder how these two languages can be created in the first place. Wish I can make a research about it. :-(
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