“Cynthia, met een i-grec”

To fellow Indonesians, I don’t know if you guys remember this, but the letter Y hasn’t always been pronounced as ‘ye’ in Bahasa Indonesia. Maybe not many people experienced this, but since I have that letter in my name, I heard it being pronounced/said differently.

When I was younger, my parents always used ‘i-grec’ to say or mention the letter Y in my name. “Cynthia, pakai ‘i-grec’,” or Cynthia with a Y. They had to do this because Cynthia is not a common Indonesian name, thus people mostly misspell this. Even until now, I keep finding other varieties of my name, such as Cintia, Sintia, Chintia, or Syntia. People are so creative at this.

So, when my Mom brought me along to register me at a school, I remember she always said “Cynthia, pakai ‘i-grec’.” If that person looked confused, she would usually add ‘ye’ or the common phoneme of the letter Y.

I found this very interesting. I remember asking her what ‘i-grec’ is. She answered that it was the letter Y. I then asked again, why did she say ‘i-grec’? She said that’s how people from the earlier generation say it. So I thought, “Oh, okay, it’s from the old Indonesian.”

Me with my little sassy girl

Old and New

Because of my previous work, I dealt with Bahasa Indonesia all the time. So I always made sure that I was following the correct grammar and everything. I also learned that there were different eras for Bahasa Indonesia. You can look this up online if you’re interested. I learned a lot about Ejaan Yang Disempurnakan (EYD), meaning the Enhanced Spelling System. There were so many changes that affected so many things, including names. My Dad went through this as well. He had to change the spelling of his last name to follow this new spelling system.

As I got older, I thought probably this spelling system made people change the ‘i-grec’ to ‘ye’. Simpler and more related to the sound of this letter itself in a word. For example, the word ‘wood’ is ‘kayu’ in Bahasa Indonesia. We say it as ‘ka - you’ and not ‘ka - i-grec - u’. Do you get it? So it makes sense if, in the Indonesian alphabet, they changed ‘i-grec’ to ‘ye’.

Is this influenced by... something?

Apparently so.

When I started learning Dutch, I found a lot of similarities in these two languages (obviously, because of the past). I learned that in the Dutch alphabet, Y is pronounced ‘’ij’ (ɛɪ) or ‘ei’… but also i-grec and Griekse ij. I looked it up online to make sure. To simplify this, the Dutch alphabet is derived from the Roman alphabet. The Roman adopted the letter Y from the Greek’s ‘y’ or ‘Ypsilon’. Because of this, Dutch people sometimes pronounced the letter Y as ‘Griekse ij’ or ‘Greek y’. Meanwhile, in France, the letter ‘i’ and ‘y’ is interchangeable. That’s why they also call it ‘Greek y’ or in French is ‘i-grec’. And with the historical background between France and the Netherlands, ‘i-grec’ is also being used here besides the ‘Griekse ij’. Complicated, huh? But it’s so interesting for me.

Later on, in the late 1980s, many Indonesian were still fluent in Dutch. I see it as English or Mandarin in this present time. It’s the second language. Then I knew where my parents got the “Cynthia, with an ‘i-grec’” from. Even my Dad still says ‘baris’ (ID) as ‘rij’ (NL), which means ‘row’ in English.

So, there you go. That’s the background story.

Some of my Dutch colleagues were amazed when I told them that I knew about ‘i-grec’ and even used it when I was younger. In the past, maybe, 15 years, I didn’t use that word anymore. I just used it again recently, which inspired me to write this post. Then I’ve been thinking, maybe I should use that more often now, I already moved to Amsterdam anyway and people understand that. So, the next time I introduce myself, I should just say “Cynthia met een ‘i-grec’.”