Bahasa Indonesia

Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia "language of Indonesia") is the official language of Indonesia. Bahasa Indonesia is a standardised dialect of Malay which had been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries, and was elevated to the status of an official language with the Indonesian declaration of independence from the Netherlands in 1945. The two languages are very similar in their sound system, grammar, and vocabulary.

Indonesian is an official language of Indonesia where it is spoken by 23 million people. It is a second language for 140 million people who speak it with varying degrees of proficiency (Ethnologue). It is also spoken in the Netherlands, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and the U.S.

It is not known exactly how many people claim Indonesian to be their first language. Most Indonesians are bilingual, and many are proficient in as many as three or four languages. Most people learn at least one of the country's many local languages at home, and later learn Indonesian at school. Indonesian tends to be used in larger urban areas, while local languages are more widely used in small towns and rural areas.

Indonesian is the official language of government administration. It is the medium of instruction at all levels of education, although English textbooks are used in specialised university courses. It is the dominant language of the country's mass media. Domestic TV programs are entirely in Indonesian, and almost all programs of foreign origin are subtitled or dubbed into Indonesian. It is also the language of literature and popular culture such as TV melodramas and comedy, pop novels, popular songs, cartoons and comics.

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