The number of individual languages listed for Indonesia is 719. This could be one of the richest local languages in the world. Of these, 706 are living and 13 are extinct. Of the living languages, 21 are institutional, 97 are developing, 248 are vigorous, 265 are in trouble, and 75 are dying. Those are the facts based on trusted research managed by Ethnologue Institution (established in 1951), an independent and nonprofit organization. Until now, local/native languages are widely used through all areas in Indonesia. Each province in Indonesia has their own major local/native language, which is sometimes are also become their official language.
Then, it must be difficult to communicate with them. No, since we have Bahasa Indonesia. Bahasa Indonesia is the official language of Indonesia. While Bahasa Indonesia is spoken as a mother tongue by only 7% of the total population, it is the national language and is used by 200 million people as their second language. Bahasa Indonesia is written with the Latin alphabet, and the lexicon is rich with borrowed vocabulary from many languages such as Sanskrit, Arabic, Portuguese, Dutch, and Chinese.
Most Indonesians, aside from speaking the national language (Bahasa Indonesia, are often fluent in another regional language (examples include Javanese, Sundanese and Madurese) which are commonly used at home and within the local community. Most formal education, business, administrative purposes, and nearly all-national media and other forms of communication, are conducted in Indonesian. This is to facilitate communication among the Indonesian people.
The Indonesian name for the language is Bahasa Indonesia (literally “the language of Indonesia”). This term is occasionally found in English. Indonesian is sometimes called “Bahasa” by English speakers, though this literally just means “language”. That’s a mistake.
Noted that Indonesia is the biggest archipelago in the world. It has 17,508 islands and 5,150 km long. Although Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, with a total population of nearly 242 million (2013 census), Indonesia is the most multi cultural and diversity country in the world.
Masrur Jamaluddin
Journalist – Documentary Filmmaker – Fixer
No comments:
Post a Comment