L E A R NB E G I N N I N G I N

D O N E S I A N

What Is Indonesian?

The History of the Indonesian

Language

Indonesian is a 20th century name for Malay. Depending on how you define a language and how you count its number of speakers, today Malay-Indonesian ranks around sixth or seventh in size among the world’s languages. With dialect variations, it is spoken by more than 2 0 0 million people in the modern states of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei. It is also an important vernacular in the southern provinces of Thailand, in East Timor, and among the Malay people of Australia’s C o c o s Keeling Islands in the Indian Ocean. It is understood in parts of the Sulu area of the southern Philippines and traces of it are to be found among people of Malay descent in Sri Lanka, South Africa and other places.

According to Ethnologue, Indonesian is a small language. It is alleged that only 23 million Indonesians speak Bahasa Indonesia natively whereas Malaysian is said to have 39 million native speakers. Wikipedia, which relies on the data provided by Ethnologue, cautions us that “the definition of a single language is to some extent arbitrary”. For this reason, “some mutually intelligible idioms with separate national standards or self-identification have been listed together, including Hindi-Urdu; [and] Indonesian and Malay”.

Virtually all speakers of regional languages do also speak Indonesian. In many cases, they speak it more frequently, and often also better than their native language as Indonesian is the preferred language of inter-ethnic communication. More than 9 0 % of speakers of regional languages are literate. When they write, they will almost exclusively write in Indonesian, and the literature they read is entirely in Indonesian. The last newspaper in the Javanese language was published about 75 years ago. The regional languages have also been heavily influenced by Indonesian, mainly in the lexicon, but often also in phonology, morphology, or syntax.

HOW MANY PEOPLE SPEAK INDONESIAN?

The number of native speakers of the Indonesian language is generally underestimated. An extreme ca se is Ethnologue which until recently maintained that the Indonesian language has 23 million native speakers. The prevailing picture is that the vast majority of Indonesians speak a regional language as their mother tongue and begin to learn Indonesian when they go to school. As the result of the relative late exposure to the national language, most Indonesians cannot be considered as native speakers of bahasa Indonesia.

Indonesian Native Speakers — Myth and RealityAbstract:

In Indonesian, the I ndonesian language is cal led Bahasa Indonesia. It is essentially the same language as Malay (Bahasa Melayu) or Malaysian (Bahasa Malaysia). Bahasa Indonesia is the national language of Indonesia and Bahasa Malaysia is the national language of Malaysia and Brunei, and one of four national languages of Singapore.

Indonesian—An Austronesian Language

Visit, www.indonesian-online.com

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