Indonesian

Where it’s spoken

Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) is the official and national language of Indonesia. It is the mother tongue of around 43 million but the second language of perhaps 200 million more — a deliberate choice in 1945 to elevate Malay over the much larger Javanese as a neutral national language. Indonesian is also widely understood in Timor-Leste, Malaysia, and the Indonesian diaspora.

What it sounds like

Indonesian has a simple 6-vowel system and 23 consonants — most are familiar to English ears. Stress is generally on the penultimate syllable. The language is non-tonal and lacks the complex tense system of European languages, marking time relations with adverbs and aspect particles.

How it’s written

Indonesian uses the Latin alphabet of 26 letters. The 1972 spelling reform unified Indonesian and Malaysian spelling — for example, the Dutch-influenced “oe” became “u.” Words are written separated by spaces, with reduplication marked by a hyphen (rumah-rumah, “houses”).

History

Indonesian descends from Riau Malay, the trade lingua franca of the Indonesian archipelago for centuries. Its formal selection as the language of Indonesian independence in 1928 (Sumpah Pemuda, Youth Pledge) and 1945 cemented its national role.