Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia)

Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia)

Selamat datang "welcome"

Introduction

Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia "language of Indonesia") is the official language of Indonesia. Bahasa Indonesia is a standardized dialect of Malay which had been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries, and was elevated to the status of an official language with the Indonesian declaration of independence from the Netherlands in 1945. The two languages are very similar in their sound system, grammar, and vocabulary.

Indonesian is an official language of Indonesia where it is spoken by 23 million people. It is a second language for 140 million people who speak it with varying degrees of proficiency (Ethnologue). It is also spoken in the Netherlands, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and the U.S.

It is not known exactly how many people claim Indonesian to be their first language. Most Indonesians are bilingual, and many are proficient in as many as three or four languages. Most people learn at least one of the country's many local languages at home, and later learn Indonesian at school. Indonesian tends to be used in larger urban areas, while local languages are more widely used in small towns and rural areas.

Indonesian is the official language of government administration. It is the medium of instruction at all levels of education, although English textbooks are used in specialized university courses. It is the dominant language of the country's mass media. Domestic TV programs are entirely in Indonesian, and almost all programs of foreign origin are subtitled or dubbed into Indonesian. It is also the language of literature and popular culture such as TV melodramas and comedy, pop novels, popular songs, cartoons and comics.

Structure

Sound System

Indonesian woman

The sound system of Indonesian is similar to that of Javanese. It has six vowel phonemes, three diphthongs, and 20 consonant phonemes.

Click here to listen to the pronunciation of Indonesian vowels and consonants.
Click here to listen to the pronunciation of some simple phrases in Indonesian.
Click here to watch short videos in Indonesian

Grammar

Grammar
Noun phrase
Indonesian nouns and pronouns are not marked for gender. For example, adik refers to siblings of both sexes. To express male gender, an adjective is used, thus adik laki-laki means "male sibling." Reduplication is used to indicate plural if there are no other contextual clues. For example, orang means "person", and orang-orang means "people."

Verb phrase
Verbs are not inflected for person, number, or tense. Tense is denoted by time adverbs, e.g., now, yesterday. Indonesian verbs use a complex system of affixes to refine their meaning.

Syntax
The basic word order in Indonesian is Subject-Verb-Object.

Vocabulary

The vast majority of Indonesian words are of Austronesian origin. It shares 80% of its vocabulary with Standard Malay. It has also borrowed extensively from other languages, for instance, from Dutch, Sanskrit, Arabic, Portuguese, Chinese, and other Austronesian languages.
Click here for a detailed description of loanwords in Indonesian.

Writing

Indonesian is written using the Latin alphabet. The orthography underwent several reforms, the first one in 1947 at the time of independence. In 1972, a spelling reform eliminated some of the spellings that were based on Dutch. For instance, oe became u (Soeharto became Suharto).

Take a look at Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Indonesian.

Does the text contain any words you can recognize?
Compare it to the Javanese version. Do you see any similarities between the two?

Pasal 1
Semua orang dilahirkan merdeka dan mempunyai martabat dan hak-hak yang sama. Mereka dikaruniai akal dan hati nurani dan hendaknya bergaul satu sama lain dalam semangat persaudaraan.

Translation
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Indonesian/Malay words in English
Did you know that these English words came from Indonesian/Malay?

amok	from Malay amuk "attacking furiously."
bamboo	probably from Malay samambu.
batik	from Malay mbatik "writing, drawing."
gecko	from Malay gekoq, imitative of its cry.
gong	from Malay gong, probably imitative of its sound.
junk	from Malay jong "ship, large boat", probably from Javanese djong.
orang-utan	from Malay orang utan, literally "man of the woods," from orang "man" + utan "forest, wild."
paddy	from Malay padi "rice in the straw," i.e., "ground where rice is growing."
rattan	from Malay rotan, from raut "to trim, strip."
sarong	from Malay sarung "sheath, covering."

Resources

Indonesian Language Learning Resources
UCLA Language Materials Project
Less Commonly Taught Languages Course Offerings
Yamada Language Guides - Indonesian
Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Northern Illinois University -- Indonesian

How difficult is it to learn Indonesian?
There is no established difficulty rating for Indonesian. One could surmise, however, that it is a Category II language in terms of difficulty for speakers of English.

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