Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Saya tidak tahu siapa yang pertama kali menulis versi lama dongeng itu. - I do not know who first wrote the old version of that fairy tale.

Saya tidak tahu siapa yang pertama kali menulis versi lama dongeng itu.

I do not know who first wrote the old version of that fairy tale.

Breakdown of Saya tidak tahu siapa yang pertama kali menulis versi lama dongeng itu.

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Questions & Answers about Saya tidak tahu siapa yang pertama kali menulis versi lama dongeng itu.

Why do we need yang after siapa in siapa yang pertama kali menulis …? In English we just say “who first wrote …”.

In Indonesian, when siapa (“who”) is the subject of a clause, it is very common (and usually preferred) to follow it with yang:

Siapa yang pertama kali menulis versi lama dongeng itu?
= Who first wrote the old version of that fairy tale?

Here, siapa is the subject of the verb menulis.
Yang works like a marker that links siapa to the rest of the sentence, highlighting it as the thing being talked about / focused on.

If you say:

Siapa pertama kali menulis … ?

it can sound incomplete or ungrammatical in standard Indonesian. In most natural speech and writing, you use siapa yang when siapa is the subject of a longer verb phrase or clause.

Is siapa yang pertama kali menulis versi lama dongeng itu a question by itself, or just part of the sentence?

By itself, Siapa yang pertama kali menulis versi lama dongeng itu? is a complete direct question:

Siapa yang pertama kali menulis versi lama dongeng itu?
Who first wrote the old version of that fairy tale?

In the longer sentence:

Saya tidak tahu siapa yang pertama kali menulis versi lama dongeng itu.

the same question clause is embedded inside another clause, saya tidak tahu (“I don’t know”). That makes it an indirect question, like English:

I don’t know who first wrote the old version of that fairy tale.

So structurally it’s a question clause, but in this sentence it functions as the object of tahu.

Why is it tidak tahu and not bukan tahu?

Indonesian uses two main negators:

tidak: negates verbs, adjectives, and adverbs
bukan: negates nouns or equational / identity statements

In Saya tidak tahu …, tahu is a verb (“to know”), so the correct negator is tidak:

✅ Saya tidak tahu. – I don’t know.
❌ Saya bukan tahu. – wrong / sounds very odd.

Examples to contrast:

Dia tidak tinggi. – He/She is not tall. (adjective)
Dia bukan guru. – He/She is not a teacher. (noun)

How does Indonesian show that menulis here is past tense (“wrote”)? There’s no tense marker.

Indonesian does not have grammatical tense like English. Verbs like menulis are tense-neutral; they can mean write / writes / wrote / is writing / was writing depending on context.

In Saya tidak tahu siapa yang pertama kali menulis versi lama dongeng itu:

pertama kali (“the first time”)
versi lama (“old version”)
dongeng itu (“that fairy tale” – usually something already known, often old)

all suggest a past event, so menulis is understood as “wrote”.

If you want to make the past sense extra explicit, you can add pernah:

Saya tidak tahu siapa yang pertama kali pernah menulis versi lama dongeng itu.

But often pernah is not needed; context is enough.

What’s the exact function of pertama kali here? Is it one expression, or two separate words?

Pertama kali literally is “first time”, but together they form a fixed expression meaning “for the first time” or simply “first” in a sequence of actions:

Dia pertama kali datang ke Jakarta tahun lalu.
He came to Jakarta for the first time last year.

In your sentence:

siapa yang pertama kali menulis …
= who first wrote … / who was the first to write …

Related patterns:

pertama – “first” (ordinal number), can stand alone:
Dia anak pertama. – He/She is the first child.
kali pertama – also “the first time”:
Itu kali pertama saya naik pesawat.

All are common, but pertama kali is very natural in action sequences like this sentence.

Why is it menulis and not menuliskan? What’s the difference?

Both come from the root tulis (“write”), but they differ slightly:

menulis: basic “to write”
menuliskan: can mean “to write (something) down / to write something for someone / to write something onto something”; it often highlights the object or destination of the writing.

In your sentence:

… menulis versi lama dongeng itu.

We’re just talking about the act of writing that version. Menulis is the most natural, neutral choice.

You could say menuliskan in some contexts, but here it’s not needed and may sound heavier for no benefit. When in doubt, menulis is safer and more general.

How is the noun phrase versi lama dongeng itu structured? Which word modifies which?

The structure follows typical Indonesian noun phrase order:

Head noun(s)
Adjectives / descriptive modifiers
Demonstrative (ini / itu) at the end

Breakdown:

dongeng – fairy tale / folk tale (main noun / thing)
versi – version (here functioning closely with dongeng: “version of the fairy tale”)
lama – old (modifier)
itu – that (demonstrative)

So versi lama dongeng itu is most naturally understood as:

“the old version of that fairy tale”

A more explicit paraphrase (slightly more formal) is:

versi lama dari dongeng itu – the old version of that fairy tale

Key point: in Indonesian, itu usually comes at the end of the whole noun phrase, not before the noun like “that” in English.

Could versi lama dongeng itu also mean “that old fairy tale’s version” or “the fairy tale that is an old version”? Is it ambiguous?

In practice, Indonesians will almost always understand versi lama dongeng itu as:

“the old version of that fairy tale”

Why?

lama is closest to versi, so it naturally modifies versi → versi lama (“old version”).
dongeng itu is then understood as the thing that has that version.

If you wanted to emphasize that the fairy tale itself is old (not specifically the version), you’d normally say:

dongeng lama itu – that old fairy tale
dongeng itu yang lama – that fairy tale, the old one

To reduce ambiguity even more when needed, you can use dari:

versi lama dari dongeng itu – the old version of that fairy tale
dongeng itu versi lama – that fairy tale (the old version)

Why is itu placed at the end (dongeng itu) instead of before the noun like in English “that fairy tale”?

Indonesian demonstratives work differently from English:

ini – this
itu – that

They usually come after the noun:

buku itu – that book
rumah ini – this house
dongeng itu – that fairy tale

If there are adjectives or other modifiers, ini/itu still goes at the very end of the whole noun phrase:

buku sejarah baru itu – that new history book
versi lama dongeng itu – that fairy tale’s old version

Putting itu before the noun (itu dongeng) is possible but different: it often sounds like topicalization or emphasis, and is less neutral than dongeng itu.

Could I say Saya tidak tahu bahwa siapa yang pertama kali menulis …? English uses “that” a lot in similar sentences.

No, you cannot combine bahwa with siapa like that. They have different roles:

bahwa introduces a statement clause:
Saya tahu bahwa dia datang. – I know that he came.
siapa (yang …) introduces a question clause (direct or indirect):
Saya tidak tahu siapa yang datang. – I don’t know who came.

So:

✅ Saya tidak tahu siapa yang pertama kali menulis versi lama dongeng itu.
❌ Saya tidak tahu bahwa siapa yang pertama kali menulis versi lama dongeng itu.

You use bahwa when what follows is a statement, not a wh-question clause.

Could I shorten it to Saya tidak tahu siapa menulis versi lama dongeng itu and drop yang?

In standard, natural Indonesian, that sounds off. When siapa is the subject of a longer clause, you normally use siapa yang …:

✅ Saya tidak tahu siapa yang menulis versi lama dongeng itu.
❌ Saya tidak tahu siapa menulis versi lama dongeng itu.

The version without yang may be heard in very casual or dialectal speech, but for clear and correct Indonesian, keep yang in:

siapa yang + [verb phrase]

How would this sentence change in informal spoken Indonesian?

In everyday casual speech, Indonesians might make several changes:

Saya → Aku / Gua / Gue (depends on region / social group)
tidak → nggak / gak / ndak / tak (regional)
Slightly shorter phrases, but grammar stays similar.

Examples:

Aku nggak tahu siapa yang pertama kali nulis versi lama dongeng itu.
Gue nggak tahu siapa yang pertama kali nulis versi lama dongeng itu.

Notes:

nulis is the colloquial reduction of menulis.
Word order and siapa yang pattern stay the same; that part does not usually change in colloquial speech.

Could saya tidak tahu go at the end, like Siapa yang pertama kali menulis versi lama dongeng itu, saya tidak tahu?

Yes, that is possible, especially in spoken or more rhetorical style:

Siapa yang pertama kali menulis versi lama dongeng itu, saya tidak tahu.

This sounds like you first bring up the topic (“Who first wrote that old version of the fairy tale…”) and then comment (“I don’t know.”). It can feel a bit more dramatic or emphatic.

However, the neutral, most common order is:

Saya tidak tahu siapa yang pertama kali menulis versi lama dongeng itu.

For learners, it’s better to master this neutral order first.