Conjunctions are words that are exist to make human being speaking more efficiently and waste no time. I believe that it was the reason behind the making of this type of word. It save a lot of time.
It is unimaginable how much time must be spent to write to utter two or three sentences that differ only on subject, predicate, or object one by one. Definitely, we save plenty of time.
Try to imagine saying these sentences :
- I eat an egg everyday
- I eat an apple everyday
- I eat a plate of rice everyday
It will so tiring and boring for both the speaker and also the listener, am I right. We must say thanks, a lot to whoever created the “AND” in English. It is easier (and wastes just a little time to say “I eat an egg, an apple, and a plate of rice everyday“), am I right? We can just say the same parts once.
How about Indonesians? Are there any conjunction in the language.
Definitely, Indonesian has as many as English does.
Like the AND, there is a word that has equal meaning and conjunctive function as an AND in English. It is very similar. It is formed from three words and also the same letters used in AND. Yap, only the position of the letters are different.
Indonesian has DAN (you see what I meant). This is a conjunction equal to DAN and has the same meaning.
Its function is to connect or combine two or more equal sentences. For example,
- Saya makan sebutir telur setiap hari (- I eat an egg everyday)
- Saya makan sebuah apel setiap hari (- I eat an apple everyday)
- Saya makan sepiring nasi setiap hari (-I eat a plate of rice everyday)
Like also an AND, we can use DAN to combine the three sentences into one. Just mention the same words one time, exactly on the same position. The sentence becomes
Saya makan sebutir telur, sebuah apel, DAN sepiring nasi setiap hari
That’s DAN, the Indonesian’s AND. The similarity of both words makes me wondering if it was possible that the creators of both were the same person who could speak both Indonesian and English. Could it be?