HISTORY

Indonesian is a normative form of the Malay language, an Austronesian (or Malayo-Polynesian) language that has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries. 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.[6]

The earliest known inscription in the Malay language dates back to the 7th century. Known as the Kedukan Bukit Inscription, it was discovered by the Dutchman M. Batenburg on 29 November 1920 at Kedukan Bukit, South Sumatra, on the banks of the River Tatang (a tributary of the River Musi).

Because of its origins, Indonesian (in its most standard form) is mutually intelligible with the official Malaysian Malay. However, it does differ from Malaysian Malay in some aspects, with differences in pronunciation, diction, spelling, accent and vocabulary. These differences are mainly due to the Dutch and Javanese influences on Indonesian.

Whilst Indonesian is spoken as a mother tongue (first language) 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 that boasts more than 300 native languages and a vast array of ethnic groups, the use of proper or good and correct Indonesian (as opposed to Indonesian slang or regional dialects) is an essential means of communication across the archipelago. 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.

Most native speakers of Indonesian would agree that the standard, correct version of the Indonesian language is rarely used in daily communication. One can find standard and correct Indonesian in books and newspapers, or listen to it when watching the news or television/radio broadcasts, but few native Indonesian speakers use formally correct 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. This is mostly due to the fact that most Indonesians tend to combine certain aspects of their own local languages (eg. Javanese, Sundanese, Balinese, and even Chinese dialects, particularly Hokkien) with Indonesian. The result is the creation of various types of 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 exacerbated by the use of Indonesian slang, particularly in the cities. A classic example of a speaker of accented Indonesian is former president Suharto, whose Javanese accent came through whenever he delivered a speech.

The Dutch colonization left an imprint on the Indonesian language that can be seen in words such as polisi (police), kualitas/kwaliteit (quality), wortel (carrot), kamar (room, chamber), rokok (cigarette), korupsi (corruption), persneling (gear), kantor (office), and resleting (zipper). Alongside Malay, Portuguese was the lingua franca for trade throughout the archipelago from the sixteenth century through to the early nineteenth century. Indonesian words derived from Portuguese include sabun (sabão, soap), meja (table), boneka (boneca, doll), jendela (janela, window), gereja (igreja, church), bendera (bendeira, flag) and Minggu (from domingo = Sunday).[7] Some of the many words of Chinese origin (presented here with accompanying Hokkien/ Mandarin pronunciation derivatives as well as traditional and simplified characters) include pisau (匕首 bǐshǒu - knife), loteng, (樓/層 > 楼/层 = lóu/céng - [upper] floor/ level), mie (麵 > 面 mi'àn - noodles), lumpia (潤餅 (Hokkien = lūn-piáⁿ) - springroll), cawan, (茶碗 cháwǎn - teacup), teko (茶壺 > 茶壶 = cháhú [Mandarin], teh-ko [Hokkien] = teapot) and even the widely used slang terms gua and lu (from the Hokkien 'goa' 我 and 'lu' 汝 - meaning 'I/ me' and 'you'). From Sanskrit came words such as kaca (glass, mirror), raja (king), manusia (mankind) b(h)umi (earth) and agama (religion). Words of Arabic origin include k(h)abar (أَخْبار, news), selamat/ salam (a greeting), dunia (دنيا, world), and kamus (قاموس, dictionary). There are also words derived from Javanese, e.g. aku (meaning I/ me (informal) and its derivative form, mengaku (to admit or confess). Through earlier influence of South Indian Tamil Chola empire that ruled over the region, many Tamil and Sanskrit words may be found in Bahasa Indonesia such as kapal (ship in Tamil), kolam (lake in Tamil) and kedai (shop in Tamil).