Indonesian

Indonesian Translation, Resources, and Discussion

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Indonesian Translator

The official language of Indonesia is known as Bahasa Indonesia or the language of Indonesia. It’s classified as a part of the Austronesian, or Malayo-Polynesian, language family. Malay-Indonesian is spoken by 250 million people across several different countries including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore Brunei, southern parts of Thailand, and the Cocos Keeling Islands.

People are said to speak Malay-Indonesian because Malay was the language of the court of Sriwijaya for over 500 years from the 9th to the 14th century. It continued to be used even after the Dutch arrived and colonized the Islands. A standardized version of Malay was developed during the early part of the 20th century and it is known as Bahasa Indonesian.

Island Languages
There are many dialects of Indonesian that are spoken in the islands. So it is very common for people to learn their home dialect first and then learn Bahasa Indonesia once they start school.
Easy for English Speakers
English speakers who are not exposed to speaking another language until later in life find it harder to learn. But Indonesian is actually easier on English speakers compared to another language. The pronunciation of words is not as difficult, it employs Latin or Roman scripts, and Indonesian doesn’t have a lot of complex verb conjugations.
Foreign Influences
Indonesian has many loan words in it. A standard Malay Language was developed in an effort to separate the country from Dutch Colonialism. But the language still has many Dutch loanwords in it. Other languages that influence Indonesian include Sanskrit, Portuguese, Arabic, and Chinese.

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