Bahasa Indonesia is the correct term for the Indonesian language. At times foreigners may refer to it as only Bahasa, but the word Bahasa simply means language. Likewise, Bahasa Inggris refers to the English language. Therefore, Bahasa Indonesia appropriately means the Indonesian language. Indonesian is almost the same as Malay, which is spoken in Malaysia. But bahasa Indonesia has many foreign influences, including Dutch, Arabic, Portuguese and Chinese. An increasing number of English words have also found their way into the Indonesian language.
Since the seventh century the Malay
language used as the official language in Indonesian archipelago. The use of
language can be seen in the inscriptions of ancient Malay in Java, Sumatra and Riau Islands. In
addition, the Malay language is also used as a language of science and
religion. It was stated by the travelers coming from China studying in
Srivijaya, which at the time it became a center of Buddhist teaching.[1] In
other words, it can be said that Malay Language already played an important
role as a supporter of the culture of Indonesia.
With dialect variations, Malay-Indonesian is spoken by as many as 250
million people worldwide. It is the dominant language of Indonesia and
Malaysia, and is strong in Singapore, Brunei, southern Thailand and the Cocos
Keeling Islands of Australia. It is also found in the Sulu area of the southern
Philippines and among people of Malay descent in South Africa, Sri Lanka and
elsewhere.
From the ninth to the fourteenth century, Malay was the court language of
the Sumateran empire of Sriwijaya. It was also the language of the greatest of
all medieval Malay states, Malacca. As a result, Malay became the native tongue
of the people living on both sides of the Strait of Malacca that separates
Sumatera from the Malay Peninsula.
In the succeeding centuries, the Strait of Malacca became a busy sea
thoroughfare. Countless travellers and traders passed through and came into
contact with the Malay language. They bore the language throughout the islands
of Indonesia and, eventually, it became a widely used lingua franca. Later,
Muslims and Christians helped spread the language as they used it in the
propagation of their faiths. By the time Indonesia began to fall under the
control of the Netherlands in the seventeenth century, Malay was so well
entrenched as a lingua franca that the European rulers adapted it as a primary
medium of communication between the government and the people (along with
Dutch).
With anti-colonial sentiments running high in the early twentieth century,
it was not easy to see what would define Indonesia as an independent nation.
Given the diversity of cultures and native languages of the islands, it was
difficult to find what Indonesians had in common. That common identity would
eventually be found by developing a standardised version of Malay to unify the
islands, and calling the language Bahasa Indonesia.
In 1928, with the country’s nationalist movement in full swing, the Congress
of Young People drafted the famous Young People’s Vow (Sumpah Pemuda) declaring
“Indonesian” the pre-eminent language of Indonesia as well as the language of
national unity. In 1945, when the Indonesian nationalist movement arose to
declare an independent republic, the Proclamation of Independence, the state
philosophy of Pancasila and the Constitution were all uttered and framed in
Bahasa Indonesia. When the Republic emerged victorious from the subsequent
Revolution (1945-1949), the prestige of the language was secured and its
development was unstoppable.
[1] James Sneddon, The Indonesian Language: Its History and
Role in Modern Society (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2003), 33, 52.
[2] Ibid.
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