Friday, April 10, 2009

Savoury in Indonesian?

What's the word for savoury in Indonesian?

My Indonesian teacher says there is no such word in Indonesian. I suspect there is.

6 comments:

mukuge said...

heya,
I presume savoury would be called 'asin' in Indonesian.

Sweetened coconut milk has some sort of 'manis' or 'gula' word following the said word (santan), denoting that some sort of sweetening agent (most commonly one of the few forms of sugar) has been added onto the milk. The same principle applies to coconut milk + salt (in ketan hitam desserts), hence 'asin'...?

I refer to martabak manis as 'sweet', and martabak telur as 'asin' by the virtue of usage of savoury ingredients such as meat, salt and MSG.

David said...

John, there's no single word that can translate as 'savoury'...you kind of have to explain it in terms of, as mukuge says, 'asin' (salty) or 'gurih' which loosely implies oily saltiness, not sweet, of the fish-n-chips type of flavour and consistency...even the esteemed Echolls and Shadily dictionaries cannot give a satisfactory translation :-)

delvi said...

the closest is gurih, i think. me not lexicographer, unfortunately.

Unknown said...

asin, huh? sounds like my teach was right all along... gurih is new to me tho, nice to know!

that shows me - never doubt my guru bahasa indonesia : )) haha

Andy Laver Sirait said...

hi, greetings from tokyo. i don't think "asin" can really describe it.."gurih" maybe is better but for indonesian gurih sometimes associated with having msg (at least that's what crossed my mind). well..as long as it tastes good, you can just say "enak"..haha..

Unknown said...

andy, yeh enak is the most important : )