Compared tο οthеr Asian languages, Indonesian seems very different. First οf аll, Indonesian uses Latin alphabet unlike many languages іn Asia thаt υѕе characters οf thеіr οwn (Chinese аnd Arabic fοr instance). In addition, a lot οf Indonesian words come frοm οthеr language building іt more similar tο a European language rаthеr thаn аn Asian language. Alѕο I’ve heard thаt Indonesian іѕ simpler tο learn rаthеr thаn οthеr Asian languages. Finally, Indonesian hаѕ hοnеѕtlу simple grammar. Whу іt іѕ nοt similar tο mοѕt Asian language?
Just to be Devil’s Advocate here, Indonesian writes with the Latin alphabet because it hadn’t developed its own writing logic before the Dutch settled there. Also, Chinese can be said to have much simpler grammar (than, say, Japanese) because it’s closer grammatically to English, so Indonesian isn’t the only “simple” Asian language.
I’m sure Asia’s linguistic history has a lot to do with their all-purpose history; like how China cut off itself from the rest of the world for thousands of years, how Indonesia is basically a set of islands in the middle of the sea that got taken over by westerners (imagine how Dutch has probably influenced the language over the past few hundred years), and much more.
Asia is such a huge continent, so you shouldn’t generalize. There are more than a dozen language families in Asia, with each family having numerous distinct languages. Indonesian belongs to the Austronesian family, which includes Malay, Tagalog, Cebuano, and Ilokano (the latter three are Philippine languages), and they share many words and meanings, and perhaps even grammar.
As for having its own script, I suspect that Indonesian, like Tagalog, really has its own script or writing but this was suppressed by Western colonizers (the Dutch for Indonesia and the Spanish in the Philippines) in favor of the Latin alphabet. Migration also brought about many borrowings from the colonial languages that became part of these native languages.
Indonesian is a normative form of the Malay language, an Austronesian (or Malayo-Polynesian) language that has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries. It was elevated to the status of official language with the Indonesian declaration of independence in 1945.
To a certain degree, Indonesian can be regarded as an open language. Over the years, foreign languages such as Sanskrit, Tamil, Chinese, Arabic, Portuguese, Dutch and English have influenced and expanded the Indonesian language, mostly through trade contacts and international media
Although it was an official language, only small population of Indonesian really spar it as a mother tongue.
There are over 300 different native languages in Indonesian archipelago, with Javanese language, as a largest ethnic group spoken as mother tongue for about 80 million people in total count.
Many Indonesian native languages, counting Javanese has its own script, but in view of the fact that a national language were predestined to unify and to be understood by all different ethnic groups, Malay language was chosen as one, for its simplicity and simple to learn.
Very different? Mate, a lot of things are very different. You can’t compare, for example, standard Arabic to Cantonese Chinese, even though they’re still spoken in what’s called Asia. Indonesian isn’t a stand-alone language, anyway. It’s part of the Malay language, so, really, you’d have to say the whole Malay language is different from the rest of Asia. The Indonesian that is now the standard for Indonesia is taken from the dialect of Malay spoken in Riau, in Sumatra.
The use of the Latin alphabet is due to colonisation by Dutch, and quite possibly the Portuguese before them, I imagine. Different ethnic groups in Indonesia really have developed their own writing systems. I know that, for one, Javanese really has its own writing. Similar things have happened in Vietnam and the Philippines, where they wrote using Chinese characters and something called Baybayin (which evolved, according to Wikipedia, from Javanese Ancient Kawi), respectively.
A lot of words in Indonesia are imported from Dutch, Portuguese, and English. But you can’t forget the influences by Arabic, Chinese (from Mandarin, Hokkien, Teochew) and Sanskrit.
i dont know why, i just wanna tell you that i have been in indonesia for only a year and people there said that my indonesian is excellent. it’s very simple to learn, i agree. Indonesian doesnt have tenses like many other languages thats what makes its simpler to learn.
i’m Indonesian and i’m proud to be different..
Thanx for noticing the differences, i believe every nation has their own uniqueness which cames from hundreds even thousands years of culture and historical revolution… so does Indonesian…
Before a 350 years Dutch Colonialization, Indonesia was known as a trading nation… merchants and traders from all over the world came to Indonesia with their commodities and cultures… blending to the community merchant and rules through marriage, religion and cultural chat..
most traders at that time was came from Arab, India, and China… some words in Indonesian are similar with those Nations language, for examples “Salam” in Indonesian has the same meaning with “Shalom” in Arabic/Hebrew, “Gede” in Indonesian has the same meaning with “Gedhe” in Hindi/Sansekrit. and many more….
then the Dutch came and started to trade with Indonesian, they’ve influenced the Indonesian a lot in Educational, Linguistic, Trades and Political view. the Dutch stays in Indonesia for 350 years, no wonder Indonesia adopts much European culture on its heritage…
after the Dutch, the Japan Empire came for 3,5 years and shape the Indonesian in many ways like the Dutch and any other Nation earlier.
by which shape which the Indonesian adopts, it doesn’t necessary building the language simple to learn… in view of the fact that Indonesia is an Archipelago.. each island/province/perfekture has their own dialect and “slank” language…
but in the diversity Indonesia has, still unity comes in a form of Bahasa Indonesia…
excellent luck to you must you chose to learn Bahasa Indonesia…
First, compared to what Asian languages? The languages of Southeast Asia include many that have the features you mention: nearly all the languages of Indonesia (not just Bahasa Indonesia) and the Philippines are written in the Latin alphabet and have many borrowings, and not just from European languages.
To the poster who said the reason for the Latin alphabet is that Indonesia didn’t have its own alphabet before the arrival of the Dutch, you are flat out incorrect. There were copious scripts in use in Indonesia for a 1,000 years before the Dutch arrived.
The borrowing of many words from Europe is also something extremely common for many languages not written in the Latin script: in all major languages in India, and also for Japanese and Korean. Once again, Indonesia is not that different.