The Indonesian Language

Although Indonesian (also know as Bahasa Indonesia or "language of Indonesia") is the official language of Indonesia, it is only spoken as a first language by 17 to 30 million of that country's inhabitants. Second language speakers, however, amount to over 140 million.1

Indonesian is an Austronesian language; it belongs to the Western, or Indonesian, branch of the language family. Standard Indonesian, which became the official language of Indonesia in 1945, is based on the dialect found in the southern Malay Peninsula (the so-called Bahasa Riau dialect).2 Unlike Malay in Malaysia, Indonesian has become the lingua franca of Indonesia through its relative simplicity, as well as the fact that it is not connected with any particular ethnic group in the country.

Like Malay, Indonesian has been greatly expanded through its borrowings from languages such as "Arabic (in particular many religious terms), Sanskrit, Portuguese, Dutch, certain Chinese dialects and more recently, English (in particular many scientific and technological terms)."3 Indonesian's orthography and grammar are regulated by the Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengembangan Bahasa or the Centre for Language Development.

Below are some brief but important facts about the country of Indonesia and its people.

Capital: Jakarta
Currency: Indonesian rupiah (IDR)
Government Type: Republic
Population: 238,452,952 (July 2004 est.)
Internet Country Code: .id
Internet Hosts: 62,036 (2003)
Internet Users: 8 million (20023)

For additional demographic information on the countries listed here, you can check out the following link:

http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/id.html

For information on The Indonesian Writing System, please see our Quick Facts Library.

1 "INDONESIAN: a language of Indonesia (Java and Bali)" Ethnologue.com
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=INZ
[Accessed December 18, 2004]

2 "Malay language" Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahasa_Melayu
[Accessed December 17, 2004]

3 "Malay language" Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahasa_Melayu
[Accessed December 17, 2004]