The Languages spoken in Indonesia

Indonesian or Bahasa Indonesia is the official language, after the proclamation of Indonesia's independence in 1945. It is spoken by around 23 million people and an identical dialect of Malay. The Bahasa Indonesia is also used in some parts of Australia (generally in Cocos Islands and Christmas Island ), Brunei, East Timor, New Caledonia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Southern Thailand, Suriname, and the United States.

Some local dialect or regional languages which are usually used by Indonesian within the residential areas are Rejang (Southwest Sumatra), Dairi Batak (Northern Sumatra), Torajan (South Sulawesi), Lampung (Southern Sumatra), Makassarese (South Sulawesi), Toba Batak (Northern Sumatra), Sasak (Lombok), Banjarese (South Kalimantan), Acehnese (Northern Sumatra), Balinese (Bali and Lombok), Buginese (South Sulawesi), Minangkabau (Central Sumatra), Madurese (Madura, East Java), Sundanese (West Java), and Javanese (Central and East Java).

The huge majority of Indonesian words come from Austronesian source. Almost 80% of its vocabulary comes from Malay. Throughout the years, foreign languages like Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, Portuguese, Sanskrit and Tamil have influenced and spread out the Indonesian language, generally by international media and business deal contacts. Indonesian is the standard of teaching in all levels of education, though English textbooks are used in specific university courses. It is also the language of literature and fashionable culture like pop novels, popular songs, TV melodramas and comedy, cartoons and comics. Indonesian is mainly a phonetic language and mostly pronounced in similar as they are spelled. The word is rhythmic with a bit level stress.