Indonesian is the official and national language of Indonesia. It is a standardized variety of Malay, an Austronesian language that has been used as a lingua franca in the multilingual Indonesian archipelago for centuries. Indonesia is the fourth most populous nation in the world, with over 270 million inhabitants of which the majority speak Indonesian, which makes it one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. Indonesian vocabulary has been influenced by various languages, including Javanese, Minangkabau, Buginese, Banjarese, Arabic, Dutch, and English. Many borrowed words have been adapted to fit the phonetic and grammatical rules of Indonesian.
The Peranakans are an ethnic group defined by their genealogical descent from the first waves of Southern Chinese settlers to maritime Southeast Asia, known as Nanyang, namely the British Colonial ruled ports in the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian Archipelago, as well as Singapore. Peranakan culture, especially in the dominant Peranakan centres of Malacca, Singapore, Penang, Phuket and Tangerang, is characterized by its unique hybridization of ancient Chinese culture with the local cultures of the Nusantara region, the result of a centuries-long history of transculturation and interracial marriage.
Koro is a culture bound delusional disorder in which individuals have an overpowering belief that their sex organs are retracting and will disappear, despite the lack of any true longstanding changes to the genitals. Koro is also known as shrinking penis, and was listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
The Javanese are an Austronesian ethnic group native to the central and eastern part of the Indonesian island of Java. With more than 100 million people, Javanese people are the largest ethnic group in both Indonesia and in Southeast Asia as a whole. Their native language is Javanese, it is the largest of the Austronesian languages in number of native speakers and also the largest regional language in Southeast Asia. The Javanese as the largest ethnic group in the region have dominated the historical, social, and political landscape in the past as well as in modern Indonesia and Southeast Asia.
The kris, or keris in the Indonesian languages, is an Indonesian asymmetrical dagger, both weapon and spiritual object, with distinctive blade-patterning achieved through alternating laminations of iron and nickelous iron (pamor). Of Javanese origin, the kris is famous for its distinctive wavy blade, although many have straight blades as well, and is one of the weapons commonly used in the pencak silat martial art, native to Indonesia.
Latah is a condition in which abnormal behaviors result from a person experiencing a sudden shock or other external stressor almost exclusively having been observed in persons from Southeast Asia. When induced, the affected person typically engages in such behaviors as screaming, cursing, dance movements, uncontrollable laughter, mimicry and command obedience. Physical symptoms include an increased heart rate and profuse sweating, but no clear physiological causality beyond the apparent relationship between sudden shock and/or severe emotional stress have been identified. Since no research has emerged indicating whether the behavior is caused by a genetic disorder unique to those of Southeast Asian ancestry, a set of psychosomatic symptoms triggered by Southwest Asian cultural anthropological factors, or another cause not yet hypothesized, the cause has remained undetermined.
Hwabyeong or Hwapyŏng is a Korean somatization disorder, a mental illness which arises when people are unable to confront their anger as a result of conditions which they perceive to be unfair. Hwabyeong is known as a Korean culture-bound syndrome. Hwabyeong is a colloquial name, and it refers to the etiology of the disorder rather than its symptoms or apparent characteristics. In one survey, 4.1% of the general population in a rural area in Korea were reported as having hwabyeong. Hwabyeong is similar to Amuk.
In medicine and medical anthropology, a culture-bound syndrome, culture-specific syndrome, or folk illness is a combination of psychiatric and somatic symptoms that are considered to be a recognizable disease only within a specific society or culture. There are no objective biochemical or structural alterations of body organs or functions, and the disease is not recognized in other cultures. The term culture-bound syndrome was included in the fourth version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders which also includes a list of the most common culture-bound conditions. Counterpart within the framework of ICD-10 are the culture-specific disorders defined in Annex 2 of the Diagnostic criteria for research.
Hantu is the Malay and Indonesian word for spirit or ghost, sometimes it is also the Tagalog word for ghost. In modern usage it generally means spirits of the dead but has also come to refer to any legendary invisible being, such as demons. In its traditional context the term also referred to animistic nature spirits or ancestral souls. The word is derived from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *qanitu and Proto-Austronesian *qaNiCu. Cognates in other Austronesian languages include the Micronesian aniti, Lio language nitu, Yami anito, Taivoan alid, Seediq and Atayal utux, Bunun hanitu or hanidu, Polynesian aitu or atua, and Tsou hicu among the Formosan languages. In terms of concept and place in traditional folklore, it is most similar to the Filipino anito.
This glossary covers terms found in the psychiatric literature; the word origins are primarily Greek, but there are also Latin, French, German, and English terms. Many of these terms refer to expressions dating from the early days of psychiatry in Europe.
There are many Malay ghost myths, remnants of old animist beliefs that have been shaped by Hindu-Buddhist cosmology and later Muslim influences, in the modern states of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and among the Malay diaspora in neighbouring Southeast Asian countries. The general word for ghost is hantu, of which there exist a wide variety. Some ghost concepts such as the female vampires pontianak and penanggal are shared throughout the region. While traditional belief does not consider all ghosts as necessarily evil, Malaysian popular culture tends to categorise them all as types of evil djinn.
Juramentado, in Philippine history, refers to a male Moro swordsman who attacked and killed targeted occupying and invading police and soldiers, expecting to be killed himself, the martyrdom undertaken as a form of jihad, considered a form of suicide attack. Unlike an amok, who commits acts of random violence against Muslims and non-Muslims alike, a juramentado was a dedicated, premeditated, and sometimes highly skilled killer who prepared himself through a ritual of binding, shaving, and prayer in order to accomplish brazen attacks armed only with edged weapons.
Grisi siknis is a contagious, culture-bound syndrome that occurs predominantly among the Miskito people of eastern Central America, and affects mainly young women. It is also known as "grisi munaia", "Chipil siknis", and "Nil siknis". More recently, cases occurring amongst people of Spanish descent have also been reported.
Puputan is a Balinese term for a mass ritual suicide in preference to facing the humiliation of surrender. It originally seems to have meant a last desperate attack against a numerically superior enemy. Notable puputans in the history of Bali occurred in 1906 and 1908, when the Balinese were being subjugated by the Dutch.
Iich'aa is a culture-bound syndrome found in the Navajo Native American culture. The non-exclusive list of symptoms are: epileptic behaviour, loss of self-control, self-destructive behaviour and fits of violence and rage.
Sembah is an Indonesian greeting and gesture as a way of demonstrating respect and reverence. While performing the sembah, the person clasped their palms together solemnly in a prayer-like fashion called suhun or susuhun in Javanese; or menyusun jari sepuluh in Indonesian and Malay, and placed them in front of the chest, and moving the combined palms up to the chin, or all the way up until the thumbs touching the tip of the nose, while bowing slightly. Any of these two forms are made depending on the status of the person greeted.
Malay folklore refers to a series of knowledge, traditions and taboos that have been passed down through many generations in oral, written and symbolic forms among the indigenous populations of Maritime Southeast Asia (Nusantara). They include among others, themes and subject matter related to the indigenous knowledge of the ethnic Malays and related ethnic groups within the region.
The Indonesian Malaysians are Malaysian citizens of Indonesian ancestry. Today, there are many Malaysian Malays who have lineage from the Indonesian archipelago and have played an important role in the history and contributed to the development of Malaysia, they have been assimilated with other Malay communities and are grouped as part of the foreign Malays or anak dagang in terms of race. The Malaysian census does not categorize ethnic groups from the Indonesian archipelago as a separate ethnic group, but rather as Malay or Bumiputera.
