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Concept
Indonesian language
Summary
Indonesian (bahasa Indonesia baˈhasa indoˈnesija) is the official and national language of Indonesia. It is a standardized variety of Malay, an Austronesian language that has been used as a lingua franca in the multilingual Indonesian archipelago for centuries. Indonesia is the fourth most populous nation in the world, with over 270 million inhabitants of which the majority speak Indonesian, which makes it one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. Indonesian vocabulary has been influenced by various languages, including Javanese, Minangkabau, Buginese, Banjarese, Arabic, Dutch, and English. Many borrowed words have been adapted to fit the phonetic and grammatical rules of Indonesian.
Most Indonesians, aside from speaking the national language, are fluent in at least one of the more than 700 indigenous local languages; examples include Javanese and Sundanese, which are commonly used at home and within the local community. However, most formal education and nearly all national mass media, governance, administration, and judiciary and other forms of communication are conducted in Indonesian.
Under Indonesian rule from 1976 to 1999, Indonesian was designated as the official language of Timor Leste. It has the status of a working language under the country's constitution along with English.
The term Indonesian is primarily associated with the national standard dialect (bahasa baku). However, in a looser sense, it also encompasses the various local varieties spoken throughout the Indonesian archipelago. Standard Indonesian is confined mostly to formal situations, existing in a diglossic relationship with vernacular Malay varieties, which are commonly used for daily communication, coexisting with the aforementioned regional languages.
The Indonesian name for the language (bahasa Indonesia) is also occasionally used in English and other languages. Bahasa Indonesia is sometimes reduced to Bahasa, which refers to the Indonesian subject (Bahasa Indonesia) taught in schools, on the assumption that this is the name of the language.
Official source
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