Language is essential to a person in wherever he or she finds him or herself as it is the medium through which communications can be made. Most travelers and visitors start to learn the general language. But one may ask if I am traveling to Indonesia, what Indonesia language is popular for communications?
Indonesia is an Asian country with lots of Islands known as the archipelago that forms the country Indonesia. Due to its touristic Islands and attractive mix of Asian culture, it is a favorite destination to most travelers for vacations.
Recommended reading………Where Indonesia Is Located On The Map
How many languages are spoken Indonesia?
Being the fourth most populous country in the world inhabited by over 270 million people, Indonesia has about 700 languages spoken in the country among the various tribes in the country. Among some of the languages spoken include Javanese, Balinese, Malay, Minangkabau, Acehnese, Batak, Makassarese, Sasak, Lampung, Indonesian, just to mention few. Aside all the 700 languages, the Indonesian language is the widely spoken one across the country.
Indonesian is the national and official language spoken across the country. The language is a standardized variety of the Austronesian language being used as the lingua franca in the country. This language is widely spoken in the world and used as the mode of instruction in the country in schools, administrations and so on.
Around the year 1600, Malay which is the base of the Indonesian language was widely the spoken language in the Archipelago until the Dutch colonial era set in. The Dutch Administrators decided to promote the Dutch language to be used in the region but was rejected when a nationalist movement was formed. It was in this regard that gave birth to the Indonesian language.
Since the use of the Indonesian language, it had some Dutch influence with so many vocabularies. The language was first used formally in Jakarta in 1938 by Jahja Datoek Kajo. However, the rapid disappearance of Dutch was a very unusual case compared with other colonized countries, where the colonial language generally has continued to function as the language of politics, bureaucracy, education, technology, and other fields of importance for a significant time after independence.
Indonesian is perhaps the only language that has achieved the status of a national language in its true sense since it truly dominates in all spheres of Indonesian society compared to the situation in other Asian countries such as India, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines.
In a reference from wiki, the ease with which Indonesia eliminated the language of its former colonial power can perhaps be explained as much by Dutch policy as by Indonesian nationalism. In marked contrast to the French, Spanish and Portuguese, who pursued an assimilation colonial policy, or even the British, the Dutch did not attempt to spread their language among the indigenous population.
In fact, they consciously prevented the language from being spread by refusing to provide education, especially in Dutch, to the native Indonesians so they would not come to see themselves as equals. Moreover, the Dutch wished to prevent the Indonesians from elevating their perceived social status by taking on elements of Dutch culture. Thus, until the 1930s, they maintained a minimalist regime and allowed Malay to spread quickly throughout the archipelago.
By the year 1993, the Indonesian language was allowed to be as national language after the formation of movements criticized and protested against the Dutch language.
The language was adopted as the country’s national language in contrast to most other post-colonial states. Neither the language with the most native speakers (Javanese) nor the language of the former European colonial power (Dutch) was to be adopted. Instead, a local language with far fewer native speakers than the most widely spoken local language was chosen (nevertheless, Malay was the second most widely spoken language in the colony after Javanese, and had many L2 speakers using it for trade, administration, and education).
In 1945, when Indonesia declared its independence, Indonesian was formally declared the national language,despite being the native language of only about 5% of the population. In contrast, Javanese and Sundanese were the mother tongues of 42–48% and 15% respectively.The combination of nationalistic, political, and practical concerns ultimately led to the successful adoption of Indonesian as a national language.
In 1945, Javanese was easily the most prominent language in Indonesia. It was the native language of nearly half the population, the primary language of politics and economics, and the language of courtly, religious, and literary tradition. What it lacked, however, was the ability to unite the diverse Indonesian population as a whole.
With thousands of islands and hundreds of different languages, the newly independent country of Indonesia had to find a national language that could realistically be spoken by the majority of the population and that would not divide the nation by favoring one ethnic group, namely the Javanese, over the others. In 1945, Indonesian was already in widespread use in fact, it had been for roughly a thousand years.
Over that long period, Malay, which would later become standardized as Indonesian, was the primary language of commerce and travel. It was also the language used for the propagation of Islam in the 13th to 17th centuries, as well as the language of instruction used by Portuguese and Dutch missionaries attempting to convert the indigenous people to Christianity.
The combination of these factors meant that the language was already known to some degree by most of the population and it could be more easily adopted as the national language than perhaps any other. Moreover, it was the language of the sultanate of Brunei and of future Malaysia, on which some Indonesian nationalists had claims.
Does Indonesia speak English?
Aside the languages spoken within the jurisdictions of the Indonesian country, travelers can explore the country under custom tour guide who offer services in the major international languages which English language is inclusive.
Travelers should learn some basic of the Indonesian language from the indigenous popular when they come into contact so they can learn the culture.
See also… The Top Best Indonesia Restaurants
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