Interesting facts about the language

According to linguistic classification, the Indonesian language belongs to the Austronesian language group, which has spread from Madagascar in the west to the Pacific Ocean, to Easter Island in the east, and from Taiwan in the north to New Zealand in the south. Specifically, Indonesian belongs to the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup, which, with nearly 300 million speakers, represents the largest subgroup of Austronesian languages.

The Indonesian language is called "Bahasa Indonesia" by the locals. It is used as the official language in Indonesia and is closely related to the Malaysian language, the so-called "Bahasa Melayu." Officially, the two are treated as separate languages, but they are closer than many German dialects. Thus, they are often treated as one language in linguistics.

The differences between Indonesian and Malaysian lie primarily in the different historical development of the languages. During the colonial period, "Bahasa Indonesia" was influenced by the Dutch, and "Bahasa Melayu" by the British colonial rulers. In recent decades, Indonesian has increasingly introduced terms from other languages native to Indonesia, such as Javanese, so that the independent development of Indonesian has progressed significantly over the past 100 years. In addition to "Bahasa Indonesia," which was used as a lingua franca on the Indonesian islands before Indonesia's independence, over 300 independent languages are spoken in Indonesia. Some of these languages—most notably Javanese—have influenced "Bahasa Indonesia." Indonesia has been an independent and sovereign state since August 17, 1945, and "Bahasa Indonesia" has been the country's official language ever since.