Indonesian
(Bahasa Indonesia) is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is
a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian
language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian
archipelago for centuries.
Indonesia is the fourth most populous
nation in the world. Of its large population the number of people who
fluently speak Indonesian is fast approaching 100%, thus making
Indonesian one of the most widely spoken languages in the world.[2]
Most
Indonesians, aside from speaking the national language, are often
fluent in another regional language (examples include Javanese,
Minangkabau and Sundanese) which are commonly used at home and within
the local community. Most formal education, as well as nearly all
national media and other forms of communication, are conducted in
Indonesian. In East Timor, which was an Indonesian province from 1975 to
1999, Indonesian is recognised by the constitution as one of the two
working languages (the other is English, alongside the official
languages of Tetum and Portuguese).
The Indonesian name for the
language is Bahasa Indonesia (literally "the language of Indonesia").
This term can sometimes still be found in written or spoken English. In
addition, the language is sometimes referred to as "Bahasa" by English
speakers, though this simply means "language" and thus does not
technically specify the Indonesian language.
Indonesian is a
normative form of the Riau dialect of the Malay language, an
Austronesian (and Malayo-Polynesian) language originally spoken in
Northeast Sumatra[1] which has been used as a lingua franca in the
Indonesian archipelago for half a millennium. It was elevated to the
status of official language with the Indonesian declaration of
independence in 1945, drawing inspiration from the Sumpah Pemuda
(Youth's Oath) event in 1928.[3] Indonesian (in its most standard form)
is largely mutually intelligible with the official Malaysian form of
Malay. However, it does differ from Malaysian in several aspects, with
differences in pronunciation and vocabulary. These differences are
mainly due to the Dutch and Javanese influences on Indonesian.
Indonesian was also influenced by the "bazaar Malay" that was the lingua
franca of the archipelago in colonial times, and thus indirectly by the
other spoken languages of the islands: Malaysian Malay claims to be
closer to the literary Malay of earlier centuries.
Whilst
Indonesian is spoken as a mother tongue by only a small proportion of
Indonesia's large population (i.e. mainly those who reside within the
vicinity of Jakarta), over 200 million people regularly make use of the
national language – some with varying degrees of proficiency. In a
nation which boasts more than 300 native languages and a vast array of
ethnic groups, it plays an important unifying and cross-archipelagic
role for the country. Use of the national language is abundant in the
media, government bodies, schools, universities, workplaces, amongst
members of the Indonesian upper-class or nobility and also in many other
formal situations.
Standard and formal Indonesian is used in
books and newspapers and on television/radio news broadcasts; however,
few native Indonesian speakers use the formal language in their daily
conversations. While this is a phenomenon common to most languages in
the world (for example, spoken English does not always correspond to
written standards), the degree of "correctness" of spoken Indonesian (in
terms of grammar and vocabulary) by comparison to its written form is
noticeably low.[citation needed] This is mostly due to[citation needed]
Indonesians combining aspects of their own local languages (e.g.,
Javanese, Sundanese, Balinese, and Chinese dialects) with Indonesian.
This results in various 'regional' Indonesian dialects, the very types
that a foreigner is most likely to hear upon arriving in any Indonesian
city or town. This phenomenon is amplified by the use of Indonesian
slang, particularly in the cities.
The language is spoken throughout
Indonesia (and East Timor), although it is used most extensively as a
first language in urban areas and usually as a second or third language
in more rural parts of Indonesia. It is also spoken by an additional
1.5+ million people worldwide, particularly in the Netherlands,
Suriname, East Timor, the Philippines, Australia, Saudi Arabia, New
Caledonia, and the United States.[1]