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Indonesian language

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Languages

   Indonesian
   Bahasa Indonesia
   Spoken in: Indonesia, East Timor
   Region: Indonesia, Malaysia, East Timor
   Total speakers: 200 million+ total
   Ranking: 39
   Language family: Austronesian
     Malayo-Polynesian
      Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian
       Sunda-Sulawesi
        Malayic
         Malayan
          Local Malay
          Indonesian
   Official status
   Official language of: Indonesia
   Regulated by: Pusat Bahasa
   Language codes
   ISO 639-1: id
   ISO 639-2: ind
   ISO/FDIS 639-3: ind
   Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA
   chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

   Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) is the official language of Indonesia.
   Indonesian is a standardized dialect of the Malay language that was
   officially defined with the declaration of Indonesian independence in
   1945, and the two languages remain quite similar.

   The language is spoken fluently as a second language by most
   Indonesians, who generally use a regional language (examples are
   Minangkabau and Javanese) at home and in their local community. Most
   formal education, as well as nearly all national media and other
   communication, are in Indonesian. In East Timor, Indonesian is
   recognized by the constitution as one of the two working languages (the
   other is English).

   The Indonesian name for the language is Bahasa Indonesia (literally
   language of Indonesia); this name is sometimes used in English as well.
   The language is sometimes called "Bahasa" by English-speakers, though
   this simply means "language" in Indonesian.

History

   Indonesian is a normative form of the Malay language, an Austronesian
   (or Malayo-Polynesian) language which had been used as a lingua franca
   in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries, and 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. It is very similar to the official
   Malaysian form of the language. However it does differ from the
   Malaysian form in some ways, with differences in pronunciation and also
   in vocabulary, due in large part to the many Dutch and Javanese words
   in the Indonesian vocabulary.

   It is spoken as a mother tongue by only 7% of the population of
   Indonesia (mainly in the vicinity of Jakarta), but altogether more than
   200 million people speak it, with varying degrees of proficiency. It is
   an essential means of communication in a region with more than 300
   native languages, used for business and administrative purposes, at all
   levels of education and in all mass media.

   However, most native Indonesian speakers would admit that the standard
   correct version of the language is hardly ever used in a normal daily
   conversation. One can read standard correct Indonesian in books and
   newspaper, or listen to it when watching the news on television, 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 mix aspects of their own local dialects (
   Javanese, Sundanese, Balinese, and even Chinese) with Indonesian when
   speaking, which results in the creation of various types of accented
   Indonesian, 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 slang, particularly in the cities. A classic example of a
   speaker of accented Indonesian is former president Soeharto, whose
   Javanese dialect came through whenever he delivered a speech.

   The Dutch colonization left an imprint on the language that can be seen
   in words such as polisi (police), kualitas (quality), konfrontasi
   (confrontation), kopi (coffee), rokok (cigarette), kantor (office), and
   resleting (zipper). There are also some words derived from Portuguese
   (sabun, soap; meja, table; jendela, window; and gereja, church),
   Chinese (pisau (匕首), knife or dagger; loteng, [upper] floor), Hindi
   (kaca, mirror) and from Arabic (khusus, special; maaf, sorry; selamat
   ..., a greeting; kursi, chair). There are also words derived from
   Javanese (aku, I (informal), and its derivative form mengaku, confess).

   See also List of borrowed words in Indonesian

Classification

   Indonesian is part of the Western Malayo-Polynesian subgroup of the
   Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian languages. According to
   the Ethnologue, Indonesian is modeled after the Riau Malay spoken in
   northeast Sumatra.

Geographic distribution

   Indonesian is spoken throughout Indonesia (and East Timor), although it
   is used most extensively in urban areas, and less so in the rural parts
   of Indonesia. It is also spoken by immigrants in countries such as The
   Netherlands and Australia.

Official status

   Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia.

Sounds

Phonology

   The following are phonemes of modern Indonesian.

   CAPTION: Vowels

             Front Central Back
     Close   iː            uː
   Close-mid e     ə       o
   Open-mid  (ɛ)           (ɔ)
     Open    a

   Indonesian also has the diphthongs /ai/, /au/, and /oi/.

   CAPTION: Consonants

               Labial Apical Postalveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
      Nasal    m      n
                                          ɲ       ŋ
     Plosive   p b    t d                         k g   ʔ
    Affricate                ʧ ʤ
    Fricative  (f)    s (z)  (ʃ)                  (x)   h
     Liquid           l r
   Approximant w                          j

   Note: The vowels between parentheses are allophones while the
   consonants in parentheses are loan phonemes and as such only occur in
   loanwords.

Learning pronunciation

   Here are a few useful tips for the learner:
     * k, p, and t are unaspirated, i.e. they are not followed by a
       noticeable puff of air as they often are in English words.
     * t and d are dental
     * When k is at the end of a syllable it becomes a glottal stop, which
       sounds like it is cut off sharply e.g. "baik", "bapak". This is
       similar to a number of English dialects where the final t is
       glottalized ("got", "what"). Only a few Indonesian words have this
       sound in the middle, e.g. "bakso" (meatballs), and it may be
       represented by an apostrophe in Arabic derived words such as "Al
       Qur'an".
     * Stress is placed on the penultimate (second-to-last) syllable of
       each base word. But if this syllable contains a schwa then the
       accent moves to the last syllable.

   For more, and to listen to examples, see SEASite Guide to Pronunciation
   of Indonesian

Grammar

Affix

   Indonesian language uses a lot of affixes (i.e. preffix, infix and
   suffix). According to the affix being used, a word could have different
   grammatical meanings (e.g. memakan means to eat something, dimakan
   means being eaten, termakan means accidentally being eaten). Often two
   different affixes are used to change the meaning of a word (e.g. duduk
   means to sit down, mendudukkan means to bring someone to sit down,
   menduduki means to sit on something, didudukkan means a person is being
   sat down, diduduki means something being sat down, etc).

Grammatical gender

   Indonesian does not make use of grammatical gender, and there are only
   a few words that use natural gender; the same word is used for he and
   she or for his and her. Most of the words that refer to people (family
   terms, professions, etc.) have a form that does not distinguish between
   the sexes. For example, adik can both refer to a younger sibling of
   either gender; no distinction is made between "girlfriend" and
   "boyfriend". In order to specify the natural gender of a noun, an
   adjective has to be added: adik laki-laki corresponds to "brother" but
   really means "male younger sibling". There are some words that are
   gendered, for instance putri means "daughter", and putra means "son";
   words like these are usually absorbed from other languages (in these
   cases, from Sanskrit through the Old Javanese language). In Jakarta and
   some other areas, abang may be used for "older brother"; kakak, "older
   sibling", is then used to mean "older sister".

Pluralization

   Plurals are expressed by means of reduplication, but only when the
   plural is not implied in the context. Thus "person" is orang, and
   "people" is orang-orang, but "one thousand people" is seribu orang, as
   the numeral makes it unnecessary to mark the plural form. Besides
   expressing plurals, reduplication can also be used to create new words
   that differ in meaning before reduplication takes place, for instance
   hati means "heart" or "liver" (depending on context) whereas hati-hati
   means "to be careful" and it is often used as a verb. For foreigners
   who are learning Indonesian, reduplication is not as easy as it seems
   to be because one can say orang ("person"), orang-orang ("people"), or
   orang-orangan ("scarecrow").

Negation

   There are two kinds of negation in the Indonesian language, which are
   tidak and bukan. Tidak is used for the negation of a verb. For example
   "saya tidak tahu" means I do not know. Bukan is used for to the
   negation of a noun. For example "Itu bukan seekor anjing" means that is
   not a dog. Another kind of negation is jangan, which is only used for
   the imperatives.

Pronouns

   There are two forms of "we", kami or kita, depending on whether you are
   including the person being talked to. Kami is used when the other
   person(s) is not included, while kita includes the opposite party.
   Their usage is increasingly confused in colloquial Indonesian.

Verbs

   Verbs are not inflected for person or number, and they are not marked
   for tense; tense is instead denoted by time adverbs (such as
   "yesterday") or by other tense indicators, such as sudah, "already". On
   the other hand, there is a complex system of verb affixes to render
   nuances of meaning and denote active-passive voices. Such affixes
   include prefixes, infixes, suffixes, and their combinations; all of
   which are often ignored in daily conversations.

Word order

   The basic word order is Subject Verb Object. Adjectives, demonstrative
   pronouns and possessive pronouns follow the noun they describe.

Vocabulary

   Indonesian as a modern dialect of Malay has borrowed heavily from many
   languages, including : Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Portuguese, Dutch,
   Chinese and many other languages, including other Austronesian
   languages. It is estimated that there are some 750 Sanskrit loanwords
   in modern Indonesian, 1,000 Arabic loans, some Persian and Hebrew ones,
   some 125 Portuguese (also Spanish and Italian) ones and a staggering
   number of some 10,000 loanwords from Dutch. The latter also comprises
   many words from other European languages, which came via Dutch, the
   so-called "International Vocabulary". The vast majority of Indonesian
   words, however, come from the root lexical stock of its Austronesian
   heritage.

   Although Hinduism and Buddhism are no longer the major religions of
   Indonesia, Sanskrit which was the language vehicle for these religions,
   is still held in high esteem and is comparable with the status of Latin
   in English and other West European languages. Residents of Bali and
   Java tend to be particularly proud of the Hindu-Buddhist heritage.
   Sanskrit is also the main source for neologisms. These are usually
   formed from Sanskrit roots. The loanwords from Sanskrit cover many
   aspects of religion, art and everyday life. The Sanskrit influence came
   from contacts with India long ago before the time of Christ. The words
   are either directly borrowed from India or with the intermediary of the
   Old Javanese language. In the classical language of Java, Old Javanese,
   the number of Sanskrit loanwords is far greater. The Old Javanese —
   English dictionary by prof. P.J. Zoetmulder, S.J. (1982) contains no
   fewer than 25,500 entries. Almost half are Sanskrit loanwords. Unlike
   other loanwords, Sanskrit loanwords have entered the basic vocabulary
   of Indonesian, so by many these aren't felt as foreign anymore.

   The loanwords from Arabic are mainly concerned with religion, in
   particular with Islam, as can be expected. Allah is the word for God
   even in Christian Bible translations. Many early Bible translators,
   when they came across some unusual Hebrew words or proper names, used
   the Arabic cognates. In the newer translations this practice is
   discontinued. They now turn to Greek names or use the original Hebrew
   Word. For example, the name Jesus was initially translated as 'Isa, but
   is now spelt as Yesus. Psalms used to be translated as Zabur, the
   Arabic name, but now it is called Mazmur which corresponds more with
   Hebrew.

   Loanwords from Portuguese are common words, which were mainly connected
   with articles the early European traders and explorers brought to
   Southeast Asia. The Portuguese were among the first westerners who
   sailed east to the " Spice Islands".

   The Chinese loanwords are usually concerned with cuisine, trade or
   often just exclusively things Chinese. There is a considerable Chinese
   presence in the whole of Southeast Asia. According to the Indonesian
   government, the relative number of people of Chinese descent in
   Indonesia is only 3.5%. Whether this is true or not is still a matter
   of debate, many think the number is much higher. But what is sure is
   that in urban centres the number can be as high as between 10–25%.

   The former colonial power, the Netherlands, left an impressive
   vocabulary. These Dutch loanwords, and also from other non
   Italo-Iberian, European languages loanwords which came via Dutch, cover
   all aspects of life. Some Dutch loanwords, having clusters of several
   consonants, pose difficulties to speakers of Indonesian. This problem
   is usually solved by insertion of the schwa. For example Dutch schroef
   ['sxruf]=> sekrup [sə'krup].

   As modern Indonesian draws many of its words from foreign sources,
   there are many synonyms. For example, Indonesian has three words for
   "book", i.e. pustaka (from Sanskrit), kitab (from Arabic) and buku
   (from Dutch). These words have, unsurprisingly, slightly different
   meanings. A pustaka is often connected with ancient wisdom or sometimes
   with esoteric knowledge. A derived form, perpustakaan means a library.
   A kitab is usually a religious scripture or a book containing moral
   guidances. The Indonesian words for the Bible are Alkitab and Injil,
   both directly derived from Arabic. The book containing the penal code
   is also called the kitab. Buku is the most common word for books.

   In addition to those above, there are also direct borrowings from
   various languages in the world, such as "karaoke" from Japanese, and "
   modem" from English.

   See also List of borrowed words in Indonesian

Spoken and informal Indonesian

   In very informal spoken Indonesian, the ai and "au" on the end of base
   words is typically pronounced as /e/ and /o/. In informal writing
   (personal communication and "trendy" magazines and newspapers) the
   spelling of such words is modified to reflect the actual pronunciation.
   E.g.: capai becomes cape or capek, pakai become pake, kalau becomes
   kalo.

   In verbs, the me- prefixes are often dropped, although the nasalized
   initial consonant is usually retained. E.g.: "mengangkat" becomes
   "ngangkat" (the basic word is "angkat"). the "-kan" and "-i" suffixes
   are often replaced by "-in". E.g.: "mencarikan" becomes "nyariin",
   "menuruti" becomes "nurutin".

   Those behaviours are rarely seen in more formal speech environments.

Writing system

   Indonesian is written using the Latin alphabet. It is more phonetically
   consistent than many languages—the correspondence between sounds and
   their written forms is generally regular.

   Consonants are represented in a way similar to Italian, although <c> is
   always /ʧ/, <g> is always /g/ and <j> represents /ʤ/ as it does in
   English. In addition, <ny> represents /ɲ/, <ng> is used for the velar
   nasal /ŋ/ (which can occur word-initially), <sy> for /ʃ/ and <kh> for
   /x/. Both /e/ and /ə/ are represented with an <e>.

   One common source of confusion for foreign readers, particularly when
   reading place names, is the spelling changes in the language that have
   occurred since Indonesian independence. Commonly-used changes include:
     Old
   spelling   New
            spelling
      oe       u
      tj       c
      dj       j
      j        y
      nj       ny
      sj       sy
      ch       kh

   The first of these changes (oe to u) occurred around the time of
   independence in 1947; all of the others were a part of an
   officially-mandated spelling reform in 1972. Some of the old spellings,
   which were more closely derived from the Dutch language, do survive in
   proper names; for example, the name of a former president of the
   Indonesia is still written Soeharto, and the central Java city of
   Yogyakarta is sometimes written Jogjakarta.

Usage and Styles

Idioms

Proverbs

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_language"
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   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
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