Talk:Languages of Indonesia

Indonesia Stub‑class High‑importance

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Languages Stub‑class

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Indonesian

Why is Indonesian not in the table? FilipeS 16:46, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I was under the impression that the word Indonesian is not really of indigenous origins. Isn't it a name given by the Dutch to its former colonies? Just like the word Indochina or Indochine given by the French, and India given by the British. Wiki Raja 23:17, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The language is officially known as Bahasa Indonesia. —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 23:31, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is officially known as Bahasa Indonesia, but how old is the term "Indonesia" and what is the root of the word or origination? For example, we have America, but that is not indigenous since it was called that after the Italian traveller Amerigo Di Vecupucci. Also, is the language "Indonesian" slang for Javanese or Malay? Wiki Raja 19:11, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Neither, it is a language on its own.Baka man 02:17, 14 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Where are your sources? and why the interest in Indonesian languages all of a sudden? Wiki Raja 06:12, 14 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've worked on a large array of Indonesia related articles if you ask people like: Dboy, Sengkang, Meursault, etc, so nothing is sudden here. Btw, the proof is in the Indonesian_language article, its a standardized form of Malay, borrowing heavily from Dutch.Baka man 23:57, 14 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Many languages in Indonesia are vernaculars (they are spoken rather than written) but they are not dialects - Javanese and Malay may be related, but they are not dialects of one or the other, any more than Italian is a dialect of Spanish. Chinese dialects like Mandarin and Cantonese are realy distinct languages, but they use the same writing system, based on characters. That's never been the case with Indonesian languages.

Wiki Raja, the origin of Indonesia is indeed not indigenous, coming from the Greek for Indian islands - the Dutch called what is now Indonesia the Netherlands East Indies, which in Indonesian, were known as Hindia Belanda. However, the nationalist leaders decided to call the country Indonesia, and its official language Indonesian. Quiensabe 15:41, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nationalism may go a little bit too far in a lot of countries. By what I mean, countries that deem the other languages of a country as dialects. A dialiects of a particular language are basically a language spoken in different accents. Wiki Raja 21:03, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dutch?

I'm surprised that Dutch is not on the list, given that Indonesia was a Dutch colony for so long. Aren't there any Dutch speakers remaining? Dutch is listed as a language in the CIA factbook entry, but it doesn't give an estimated number of speakers. I have no idea, and I'm neither Dutch nor Indonesian. Just curious. --Itub 19:13, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

AFAIK, Dutch is used only by some small groups of (elderly) people, especially of Maluku and Manado origin. Dutch is taught also in some universities, as a language itself, or learned to help understanding in law literatures (Indonesia still uses continental system of law). The number of Dutch user nowadays is relatively very low. Kembangraps 18:24, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Malay

If a tourist speaks in Malay, would it be understood in Indonesia? Are these two languages mutually intelligible like Tamil and Malayalam? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.215.54.175 (talk) 12:55, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Most Indonesians understand Malay's dialect of Malaysia, because it is also used in the regions such as Riau and Kalimantan.back to goguryeo (talk) 03:56, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Chinese languages

When adding up the numbers of speakers of Chinese languages it comes to a total of 22.1 million speakers. According to most statistics, there are around 8 million ethnic Chinese in Indonesia. Why this huge discrepancy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Takeaway (talk • contribs) 20:50, 19 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]