Spanyol Language

Loan words of Arabic origin

Many Arabic words were brought and spread by merchants from Arab Peninsula like Arabian, Persian, and from the western part of India, Gujarat where many Muslims lived.[106] As a result, many Indonesian words come from the Arabic language. Especially since the late 12th century, Old Malay was heavily influenced by the language and produced many great literary works such as Syair, Babad, Hikayat, and Suluk. This century is known as The Golden Age of Indonesian Literature.[106]

Many loanwords from Arabic are mainly concerned with religion, in particular with Islam, and by extension, with greetings such as the word, "selamat" (from Arabic: سلامة salāma = health, soundness)[107] means "safe" or "lucky". Words of Arabic origin include dunia (from Arabic: دنيا dunyā = the present world), names of days (except Minggu), such as Sabtu (from Arabic: سبت sabt-u = Saturday), iklan (آعلان iʻlan = advertisement), kabar (خبر khabar = news), Kursi (كرسي kursī = a chair), ijazah (إجازة ijāza = 'permission', certificate of authority, e.g. a school diploma certificate), kitab (كتاب kitāb = book), tertib (ترتيب tartīb = order/arrangement) and kamus (قاموس qāmūs = dictionary). Allah (Arabic: الله), as is mostly the case for Arabic speakers, this 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 (Arabic: عيسى), but is now spelt as Yesus. Several ecclesiastical terms derived from Arabic still exist in Indonesian language. Indonesian word for bishop is uskup (from Arabic: أسقف usquf = bishop). This in turn makes the Indonesian term for archbishop uskup agung (lit. 'great bishop'), which is combining the Arabic word with an Old Javanese word. The term imam (from Arabic: إمام imām = leader, prayer leader) is used to translate a Catholic priest, beside its more common association with an Islamic prayer leader. Some Protestant denominations refer to their congregation jemaat (from Arabic: جماعة jamāʻa = group, a community). Even the name of the Bible in Indonesian translation is Alkitab (from Arabic: الكتاب al-kitāb = the book), which literally means "the Book".

English-Indonesian dictionaries

Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Northeastern India

The Karbi language () is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken by the Karbi (also known as Mikir or Arlêng) people of Northeastern India.

It belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family, but its position is unclear. Grierson (1903)[2] classified it under Naga languages, Shafer (1974) and Bradley (1997) classify the Mikir languages as an aberrant Kuki-Chin branch, but Thurgood (2003) leaves them unclassified within Sino-Tibetan. Blench and Post (2013) classify it as one of the most basal languages of the entire family.

Originally, there was no written form of the language, and like most languages of Northeast India, Karbi writing system is based on Roman script, occasionally in Assamese script. The earliest written texts in Karbi were produced by Christian missionaries, in Roman script, especially by the American Baptist Mission and the Catholic Church. The missionaries brought out a newspaper in Karbi titled Birta in the year 1903, Rev. R.E. Neighbor's 'Vocabulary of English and Mikir, with Illustrative Sentences' published in 1878, which can be called the first Karbi dictionary. Sardoka Perrin Kay's 'English–Mikir Dictionary' published in 1904, Sir Charles Lyall and Edward Stack's The Mikirs in 1908, the first ethnographic details on the Karbis and G.D. Walker's 'A Dictionary of the Mikir Language' published in 1925 are some of the earliest known books on the Karbis and the Karbi language and grammar.[3]

The Karbis have a rich oral tradition. The Mosera (recalling the past), a lengthy folk narrative that describes the origin and migration ordeal of the Karbis, is one such example.

There is little dialect diversity except for the Dumurali / Kamrup Karbi dialect, which is distinct enough to be considered a separate Karbi language.

Konnerth (2014) identifies two main variations of the Karbi language:

Data below are from Konnerth (2017).[4]

Karbi syllables may be the open (C)(C)V(V) or the closed (C)(C)VC. Possible onset consonant cluster combinations are as follows: /pl pr pʰl pʰr tʰr kl kr kʰr/.

There are three pairs of tones in Karbi: low (L), mid (M), and high (H). Unstressed syllables are often toneless. Clitics are toneless, but some suffixes, such as derivational suffixes, tend to have tone.

Karbi is a highly synthetic, agglutinating language, especially in predicate morphology. Karbi nouns are however typically analytic and isolating. It distinguishes first person inclusive and exclusive pronouns. Possessive a- and plural marker -tum are used to denote plurality in periphrastic level.

pí-nè-pinã-cē-dèt-jí-ma

what-INDF-DISTR.PL-NEG-PFV-IRR.2-Q

te mò pí-nè-pinã-cē-dèt-jí-ma ko jīrpō pu

therefore FUT what-INDF-DISTR.PL-NEG-PFV-IRR.2-Q buddy:VOC friend QUOT

'And there won't be any difficulties, my friend?'

Karbi noun phrase structure accepts enumeration constructions, RCs, and PCT modifiers to occur either side of the head noun. DEMs and (NP)POSRs are restricted to the front slots, and the plural marker takes the last slot.

pinì-ke nè e-sòn a-khobór mẽ-sén arjū-lōng

today-TOP 1SG.EXCL one-CLF:thing POSS-news(IND) be-good-INT hear-get

'Today I got good news'

Role-marking has three classes: unmarked NPs, marked with -phān (non-subject) and lōng (locative). Unmarked NPs refers to NPs that display clear from context what kind of syntactic/semantic role they play in the clause. The S arguments in intransitive clause are always unmarked, but O & A arguments may not be marked in Karbi differential object marking. OBL participants may remain unmarked as well if their role in clause in clear from context.

nang-pō-le hēmtāp a-ngsóng chō-tē nang-tūm-ke mandú-le chō

2SG-father-FOC.IRR tree.house POSS-high.up eat-if 2SG-PL-TOP field.hut-FOC.IRR eat

'If your father takes his meal in the tree house, you eat in the field hut'

Core arguments marked with -phān are syntactically participants with the O and R roles in clause.

beat.w/flexible-IDEO~DISTR.PL-PFV

chonghō a-phān jamír a-bú-pen sáp-phrát~phrát-dèt

frog POSS-NSUBJ grain.sp POSS-bundle-with beat.w/flexible-IDEO~DISTR.PL-PFV

'and with a bundle of jamir they beat the frog[...]'

Locative -lōng marks oblique locational expressions in NP relation of any semantic types, human O-like locational arguments, human R-like locational arguments, as well as it may replace relator noun that indicate specific locational and directional relations such as 'in', 'near', 'at', 'around' and such. In addition, a enclitic =pen is used to mark the instrumental, the comitative, the ablative. Diachronically, -pen is a clause final marker.

drop-go-in.a.fixed.place-REL

a-phì alòng thòn-dām-kòk-lò

POSS-grandmother LOC drop-go-in.a.fixed.place-REL

'and she left (the child) with the grandmother'

POSS-wise.person(IND)-female

join-follow.closely-REL

lasō a-bamón-pī alòng dùn-krì-lò

this POSS-wise.person(IND)-female LOC join-follow.closely-REL

'he followed his wife closely, he followed this bamónpī closely'

Clauses can combine together into a long chain of clauses by suffixing -si (non-final.realis), -ra (non-final.irrealis), -pen (non-final.with). Clausal chaining marks events in temporal sequence, and other clausal chaining constructions can carry out other functions.

POSS-mother-(additive.focus):DM

outside.part.Karbi.house

POSS-basket.for.firewood

leave.in.a.fixed.place-NF:REAL

entrance.area.Karbi.house

sit-big:(agent-orientated.verb)-NF:REAL

RECP-CAUS-suck-NF:REAL

stay-quiet-INF.COND.IMP

e [ánke a-pāi-tā pharlá dàm] [thēng a-khangrá ó-kòk-si] [hēm dàm-si] [hongkūp ingnì-lùn-si] [mōk che-pa-chū-si] [dō-jòi-nōi pō]

DS and.then POSS-mother-(additive.focus):DM outside.part.Karbi.house go firewood POSS-basket.for.firewood leave.in.a.fixed.place-NF:REAL house go-NF:REAL entrance.area.Karbi.house sit-big:(agent-orientated.verb)-NF:REAL breast RECP-CAUS-suck-NF:REAL stay-quiet-INF.COND.IMP father

'and then, the mother went and unloaded the firewood in the Pharla (Veranda), then went inside the house, sat down in the Hongkup, gave the child the milk, (and said) "be quiet, Daddy"'

Loan words of Portuguese origin

Alongside Malay, Portuguese was the lingua franca for trade throughout the archipelago from the sixteenth century through to the early nineteenth century. The Portuguese were among the first westerners to sail eastwards to the "Spice Islands". Loanwords from Portuguese were mainly connected with articles that the early European traders and explorers brought to Southeast Asia. Indonesian words derived from Portuguese include meja (from mesa = table), bangku (from banco = bench), lemari/almari (from armário = closet), boneka (from boneca = doll), jendela (from janela = window), gereja (from igreja = church), misa (from missa = mass), Natal (from Natal = Christmas), Paskah (from Páscoa = Easter), pesta (from festa = party), dansa (from dança = dance), pesiar (from passear = cruise), bendera (from bandeira = flag), sepatu (from sapato = shoes), garpu (from garfo = fork), kemeja (from camisa = shirt), kereta (from carreta = chariot), pompa (from bomba hidráulica = pump), pigura (from figura = picture), roda (from roda = wheel), nona (from dona = young woman), sekolah (from escola = school), lentera (from lanterna = lantern), paderi (from padre = priest), Santo, Santa (from Santo, Santa = Saint), puisi (from poesia = poetry), keju (from queijo = cheese), mentega (from manteiga = butter), serdadu (from soldado = soldier), meski (from mas que = although), kamar (from câmara = room), laguna (from laguna = lagoon), lelang (from leilão = auction), persero (from parceiro = company), markisa (from maracujá = passion fruit), limau (from limão = lemon), kartu (from cartão = card), Inggris (from inglês = English), Sabtu (from sábado = Saturday), Minggu (from domingo = Sunday), etc.[108]

Old Malay as lingua franca

Trade contacts carried on by various ethnic peoples at the time were the main vehicle for spreading the Old Malay language, which was the main communications medium among the traders. Ultimately, the Old Malay language became a lingua franca and was spoken widely by most people in the archipelago.[28][29]

Indonesian (in its standard form) has essentially the same material basis as the Malaysian standard of Malay and is therefore considered to be a variety of the pluricentric Malay language. However, it does differ from Malaysian Malay in several respects, with differences in pronunciation and vocabulary. These differences are due mainly to the Dutch and Javanese influences on Indonesian. Indonesian was also influenced by the Melayu pasar (lit. 'market Malay'), which was the lingua franca of the archipelago in colonial times, and thus indirectly by other spoken languages of the islands.

Malaysian Malay claims to be closer to the classical Malay of earlier centuries, even though modern Malaysian has been heavily influenced, in lexicon as well as in syntax, by English. The question of whether High Malay (Court Malay) or Low Malay (Bazaar Malay) was the true parent of the Indonesian language is still in debate. High Malay was the official language used in the court of the Johor Sultanate and continued by the Dutch-administered territory of Riau-Lingga, while Low Malay was commonly used in marketplaces and ports of the archipelago. Some linguists have argued that it was the more common Low Malay that formed the base of the Indonesian language.[30]

Letter names and pronunciations

The Indonesian alphabet is exactly the same as in ISO basic Latin alphabet.

Indonesian follows the letter names of the Dutch alphabet. Indonesian alphabet has a phonemic orthography; words are spelled the way they are pronounced, with few exceptions. The letters Q, V and X are rarely encountered, being chiefly used for writing loanwords.

In addition, there are digraphs that are not considered separate letters of the alphabet:[103]

Pie chart showing percentage of other languages contribute on loan words of Indonesian language

Sanskrit and Hindi (9%)

As a modern variety of Malay, Indonesian has been influenced by other languages, including Dutch, English, Greek (where the name of the country, Indonesia, comes from), Arabic, Chinese, Portuguese, Sanskrit, Tamil, Hindi, and Persian. The vast majority of Indonesian words, however, come from the root lexical stock of Austronesian (including Old Malay).[35]

The study of Indonesian etymology and loan words reveals both its historical and social contexts. Examples are the early Sanskrit borrowings from the 7th century during the trading era, the borrowings from Arabic and Persian during the time of the establishment of Islam in particular, and those from Dutch during the colonial period. Linguistic history and cultural history are clearly linked.[104]

List of loan words of Indonesian language published by the Badan Pengembangan Bahasa dan Perbukuan (The Language Center) under the Ministry of Education and Culture:[105]

Note: This list only lists foreign languages, thus omitting numerous local languages of Indonesia that have also been major lexical donors, such as Javanese, Sundanese, Betawi, etc.

Geographical distribution

Karbi is spoken in the following areas of Northeast India (Ethnologue).

An estimate 1500 Karbi live in Bangladesh.[5]

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Oceanic language in Papua New Guinea

Bola, or Bakovi, is an Oceanic language of West New Britain in Papua New Guinea. The Harua (Xarua) dialect developed on a palm plantation.

Phonology of the Bola language:[2]

/t/ is realized as /s, ʃ/ only when occurring in front of /i/. The voiced stops /b d ɡ/ can often sound prenasalized [ᵐb ⁿd ᵑɡ] among various speakers. /ɣ/ can be pronounced as a glottal fricative [h] among younger speakers.

/i/ before vowel sounds /ɑ ɛ ɔ u/ is pronounced as a glide sound [j].[3]

Every Clementian to be empowered as proficient, confident and creative users of Malay language, with strong moral values and deep sense of national identity, enabling them to contribute meaningfully to society. (Arif Budiman)

1. Mother Tongue Fornight (MTL Fortnight) The Mother Tongue Language (MTL) Fortnight, held annually in Term 3, aims to engage Clementians with learning experiences beyond the textbooks and classrooms to make the learning of MTL fun and meaningful. Clementians participate in various activities to immerse, better understand and appreciate the Malay Language and culture. Our Clementians took part in the following activities this year:

Primary 1: Playing batu seremban (five stones) and Singing of Malay folk songs Primary 2: Playing congkak and Singing of Malay folk songs Primary 3: Making of Bunga Manggar Primary 4: Appreciation for Wayang Kulit and Malay tradisional music Primary 5: Batik Painting Primary 6: Khat Writing

2. Fiesta Kampung To further promote the use of the Malay Language and creating cultural awareness in our Clementians, our school oganised the inaugural 'Fiesta Kampung' event in 2024. A collaboration with other primary schools in the W1 cluster, pupils from Primary 1 to 5 participated in various traditional games such as bola baling, tapak gajah, capteh, sepak takraw and tarik upih.

3. External - Rakan Bahasa and Lensa Si Cilik As part of Bulan Bahasa, pupils are appointed as Rakan Bahasa (Friends of the Language) by the Malay Language Council, Singapore (Majlis Bahasa Melayu Singapura or MBMS), to encourage those who are passionate about the Malay language and culture, to spread the love of the language to their peers, friends and families. Their role is to share the beauty of the Malay language and to continue promoting it.

Throughout the year, every Rakan Bahasa will be given opportunities to attend various programmes and activities that will develop their skills and capabilities. These programmes include Rakan Bahasa Kembara Activity Cards, TeeVers Competition, Penterjemah Pintar (Translation Competition) and more.

Lensa Si Cilik is a video competition where participants have to create and film a skit based on Malay Language proverbs. Our school was awarded the Gold award for our video submission.

4. Teaching and Learning of the Malay Language In CTPS, our Clementians learn the Malay Language as active participants in an ICT-enhanced learning environment. Clementians also get to embark on learning beyond the textbooks and classrooms, making the learning of Malay language more interesting and meaningful. They also learn about the Malay culture in an interactive way through mediated learning experiences and hand-on activities.

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today, a summary of a new article in

this week about speech evolution:

I think Greg Hickok had the most trenchant comment, that people are hoping “that there was one thing that had to happen and that released the linguistic abilities.” And John Locke had the best bumper sticker, “Motor control rots when you die.”

As the authors say in the article, recent work has shown that primate vocal tracts are capable of producing some vowel sounds:

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/12/e1600723

This is certainly interesting from a comparative physiological perspective, and the article has a great summary of tube models for vowels. But I don't think that "producing vowel sounds" should be equated with "having speech" in the sense of "having a phonological system". My own feeling is that we should be looking for a couple of things. First, the ability to pair non-trivial sound sequences (phonological representations) with meanings in long term memory. Some nonhuman animals (including dogs) do have this ability, or something like it, so this isn't the lynch pin.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/304/5677/1682.short

Second, the emergence of speech sound sequencing abilities in both the motor and perceptual systems. That is, the ability to perform computations over sequences; to compose, decompose and manipulate sequences of speech sounds, which includes concatenation, reduplication, phonotactic patterning, phonological processes and so on. The findings closest to showing this for nonhuman animals (birds in this case) that I am aware of are in:

In those papers the debate is framed in terms of syntax, which I think is misguided. But the experiments do show some sound sequencing abilities in the birds which might coincide with some aspects of human phonological abilities. But, of course, this would be an example of convergent evolution, so it tells us almost nothing about the evolutionary history in primates.

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Discover why BROWNS should be your No. 1 choice for studying English in Australia

Belanda Bor is a member of the Western Luo branch of the Nilotic language family. It is spoken in South Sudan by about 26,000 people, particularly in Wau and Jur River counties of Western Bahr-el-Ghazal State, and in Nagero county of Western Equatoria State.

Belanda Bor is also known as Belanda Boor, De Bor or Bor. The people who speak it call it di Bor. It is closely related to Shilluk, and is written with the Latin alphabet.

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Download an alphabet chart for Belanda Bor (Excel)

Kɛndo rɛc kɔf nà wɛ ná ya acaami yokɔ kï, yi übeeꞌd ri mu kpɔ ꞌdooŋ fiinja ki degi ba. Lɛc, “Ayii lanj cam kï, Gwɛnɔ.” Afɔyɔ, ná yi tundu mu yii ba, Fïï Üton, yï kukɔŋ ceŋ afiinj ꞌDübor, Ge doom laaï kɔf kɛw ri ge ki nyɛɛt nyɛto.

However, after I have eaten you, you will not be at alive so as to ask with your mouth. Elephant, "I agree to food competition, Hen." Hare if you still are not convinced, For Hyena had asked Lion on the first day, hey began exchange words together and lughing laugh.

Source: Belanda Bor Grammar Book. 2015.

Information about Belanda Bor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belanda_Bor_language https://www.webonary.org/belandabor/overview/introduction/ https://www.101lasttribes.com/tribes/balanda.html https://www.sil.org/resources/search/language/bxb

Acholi, Adhola, Alur, Anuak, Ateso, Bari, Belanda Bor, Datooga, Dholuo, Dinka, Dongotono, Kakwa, Karamojong, Keiyo, Kipsigis, Kuku, Kupsabiny, Lango (South Sudan), Lango (Uganda), Lopit, Lotuko, Maasai, Mandari, Markwet, Nandi, Nuer, Nyangatom, Nyepu, Terik, Toposa, Tugen, Turkana

Languages written with the Latin alphabet

Page created: 24.09.24. Last modified: 25.09.24

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Colonial era and the birth of Indonesian

When the Dutch East India Company (VOC) first arrived in the archipelago at the start of the 1600s, the Malay language was a significant trading and political language due to the influence of the Malaccan Sultanate and later the Portuguese. However, the language had never been dominant among the population of the Indonesian archipelago as it was limited to mercantile activity. The VOC adopted the Malay language as the administrative language of their trading outpost in the east. Following the bankruptcy of the VOC, the Batavian Republic took control of the colony in 1799, and it was only then that education in and promotion of Dutch began in the colony. Even then, Dutch administrators were remarkably reluctant to promote the use of Dutch compared to other colonial regimes. Dutch thus remained the language of a small elite: in 1940, only 2% of the total population could speak Dutch. Nevertheless, it did have a significant influence on the development of Malay in the colony: during the colonial era, the language that would be standardized as Indonesian absorbed a large amount of Dutch vocabulary in the form of loanwords.

The nationalist movement that ultimately brought Indonesian to its national language status rejected Dutch from the outset. 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.[31] The Indonesian scholar Soenjono Dardjowidjojo [id] even goes so far as to say that when compared to the situation in other Asian countries such as India, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines, "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.[32] 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.[31] 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.

Dutch dominance at that time covered nearly all aspects, with official forums requiring the use of Dutch, although since the Second Youth Congress (1928) the use of Indonesian as the national language was agreed on as one of the tools in the independence struggle. As of it, Mohammad Hoesni Thamrin inveighed actions underestimating Indonesian. After some criticism and protests, the use of Indonesian was allowed since the Volksraad sessions held in July 1938.[33] By the time they tried to counter the spread of Malay by teaching Dutch to the natives, it was too late, and in 1942, the Japanese conquered Indonesia. The Japanese mandated that all official business be conducted in Indonesian and quickly outlawed the use of the Dutch language.[34] Three years later, the Indonesians themselves formally abolished the language and established bahasa Indonesia as the national language of the new nation.[35] The term bahasa Indonesia itself had been proposed by Mohammad Tabrani in 1926,[36] and Tabrani had further proposed the term over calling the language Malay language during the First Youth Congress in 1926.[4]

Indonesian language (old VOS spelling):Jang dinamakan 'Bahasa Indonesia' jaitoe bahasa Melajoe jang soenggoehpoen pokoknja berasal dari 'Melajoe Riaoe' akan tetapi jang soedah ditambah, dioebah ataoe dikoerangi menoeroet keperloean zaman dan alam baharoe, hingga bahasa itoe laloe moedah dipakai oleh rakjat diseloeroeh Indonesia; pembaharoean bahasa Melajoe hingga menjadi bahasa Indonesia itoe haroes dilakoekan oleh kaoem ahli jang beralam baharoe, ialah alam kebangsaan Indonesia Indonesian (modern EYD spelling): Yang dinamakan 'Bahasa Indonesia' yaitu bahasa Melayu yang sungguhpun pokoknya berasal dari 'Melayu Riau' akan tetapi yang sudah ditambah, diubah atau dikurangi menurut keperluan zaman dan alam baru, hingga bahasa itu lalu mudah dipakai oleh rakyat di seluruh Indonesia; pembaharuan bahasa Melayu hingga menjadi bahasa Indonesia itu harus dilakukan oleh kaum ahli yang beralam baru, ialah alam kebangsaan Indonesia English: "What is named as 'Indonesian language' is a true Malay language derived from 'Riau Malay' but which had been added, modified or subscribed according to the requirements of the new age and nature, until it was then used easily by people across Indonesia; the renewal of Malay language until it became Indonesian it had to be done by the experts of the new nature, the national nature of Indonesia" — Ki Hajar Dewantara in the Congress of Indonesian Language I 1938, Solo[37][38]

Several years prior to the congress, Swiss linguist, Renward Brandstetter wrote An Introduction to Indonesian Linguistics in 4 essays from 1910 to 1915. The essays were translated into English in 1916. By "Indonesia", he meant the name of the geographical region, and by "Indonesian languages" he meant Malayo-Polynesian languages west of New Guinea, because by that time there was still no notion of Indonesian language.

Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana was a great promoter of the use and development of Indonesian and he was greatly exaggerating the decline of Dutch. Higher education was still in Dutch and many educated Indonesians were writing and speaking in Dutch in many situations (and were still doing so well after independence was achieved). He believed passionately in the need to develop Indonesian so that it could take its place as a fully adequate national language, able to replace Dutch as a means of entry into modern international culture. In 1933, he began the magazine Pujangga Baru (New Writer — Poedjangga Baroe in the original spelling) with co-editors Amir Hamzah and Armijn Pane. The language of Pujangga Baru came in for criticism from those associated with the more classical School Malay and it was accused of publishing Dutch written with an Indonesian vocabulary. Alisjahbana would no doubt have taken the criticism as a demonstration of his success. To him the language of Pujangga Baru pointed the way to the future, to an elaborated, Westernised language able to express all the concepts of the modern world. As an example, among the many innovations they condemned was use of the word bisa instead of dapat for 'can'. In Malay bisa meant only 'poison from an animal's bite' and the increasing use of Javanese bisa in the new meaning they regarded as one of the many threats to the language's purity. Unlike more traditional intellectuals, he did not look to Classical Malay and the past. For him, Indonesian was a new concept; a new beginning was needed and he looked to Western civilisation, with its dynamic society of individuals freed from traditional fetters, as his inspiration.[13]

The prohibition on use of Dutch led to an expansion of Indonesian language newspapers and pressure on them to increase the language's wordstock. The Japanese agreed to the establishment of the Komisi Bahasa (Language Commission) in October 1942, formally headed by three Japanese but with a number of prominent Indonesian intellectuals playing the major part in its activities. Soewandi, later to be Minister of Education and Culture, was appointed secretary, Alisjahbana was appointed an 'expert secretary' and other members included the future president and vice-president, Sukarno and Hatta. Journalists, beginning a practice that has continued to the present, did not wait for the Komisi Bahasa to provide new words, but actively participated themselves in coining terms. Many of the Komisi Bahasa's terms never found public acceptance and after the Japanese period were replaced by the original Dutch forms, including jantera (Sanskrit for 'wheel'), which temporarily replaced mesin (machine), ketua negara (literally 'chairman of state'), which had replaced presiden (president) and kilang (meaning 'mill'), which had replaced pabrik (factory). In a few cases, however, coinings permanently replaced earlier Dutch terms, including pajak (earlier meaning 'monopoly') instead of belasting (tax) and senam (meaning 'exercise') instead of gimnastik (gymnastics). The Komisi Bahasa is said to have coined more than 7000 terms, although few of these gained common acceptance.[13]

Geographical distribution

In 2020, Indonesian had 71.9 million native speakers and 176.5 million second-language speakers,[58] who speak it alongside their local mother tongue, giving a total number of speakers in Indonesia of 248.5 million.[59] It is common as a first language in urban areas, and as a second language by those residing in more rural parts of Indonesia.

The VOA and BBC use Indonesian as their standard for broadcasting in Malay.[60][61] In Australia, Indonesian is one of three Asian target languages, together with Japanese and Mandarin, taught in some schools as part of the Languages Other Than English programme.[62] Indonesian has been taught in Australian schools and universities since the 1950s.[63]

In East Timor, which was occupied by Indonesia between 1975 and 1999, Indonesian is recognized by the constitution as one of the two working languages (the other being English), alongside the official languages of Tetum and Portuguese.[8] It is understood by the Malay people of Australia's Cocos Keeling Islands in the Indian Ocean, also in some parts of the Sulu area of the southern Philippines and traces of it are to be found among people of Malay descent in Sri Lanka, South Africa, and other places.[16]

Loan words of English origin

Many English words were incorporated into Indonesian through globalization. Many Indonesians, however, mistake words already adopted from Dutch as words borrowed from English. Indonesian adopts English words with standardization.[110] For example: aksesori from accessory.[111][112] However, there are several words that directly borrowed without standardization that have same meanings in English such as: bus, data, domain, detail, internet, film, golf, lift, monitor, radio, radar, unit, safari, sonar, video, and riil as real.[112]

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 boek); however, each has a slightly different meaning. 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 guidance. The Indonesian words for the Bible and Gospel 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.

There are direct borrowings from various other languages of the world, such as karaoke (from カラオケ) from Japanese, and ebi (from えび) which means dried shrimp. Many words that originally are adopted through the Dutch language today however often are mistaken as English due to the similarity in the Germanic nature of both languages. In some cases the words are replaced by English language through globalization: although the word arbei (Dutch: aardbei) still literally means strawberry in Indonesian, today the usage of the word stroberi is more common. Greek words such as demokrasi (from δημοκρατία dēmokratía), filosofi, filsafat (both from φιλοσοφία philosophia), mitos (from μῦθος mythos) came through Dutch, Arabic and Portuguese respectively.

It is notable that some of the loanwords that exist in both Indonesian and Malaysian languages are different in spelling and pronunciation mainly due to how they derived their origins: Malaysian utilises words that reflect the English usage (as used by its former colonial power, the British), while Indonesian uses a Latinate form (e.g. aktiviti (Malaysian) vs. aktivitas (Indonesian), universiti (Malaysian) vs. universitas (Indonesian)).

Adoption as the national language

The adoption of Indonesian as the country's national language was 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,[9] 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.[39] 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.[31] 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 favouring one ethnic group, namely the Javanese, over the others. In 1945, Indonesian was already in widespread use;[39] 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.[31] 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.

Over the first 53 years of Indonesian independence, the country's first two presidents, Sukarno and Suharto constantly nurtured the sense of national unity embodied by Indonesian, and the language remains an essential component of Indonesian identity. Through a language planning program that made Indonesian the language of politics, education, and nation-building in general, Indonesian became one of the few success stories of an indigenous language effectively overtaking that of a country's colonisers to become the de jure and de facto official language.[35] Today, Indonesian continues to function as the language of national identity as the Congress of Indonesian Youth envisioned, and also serves as the language of education, literacy, modernization, and social mobility.[35] Despite still being a second language to most Indonesians, it is unquestionably the language of the Indonesian nation as a whole, as it has had unrivalled success as a factor in nation-building and the strengthening of Indonesian identity.