Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia and is also known to be a dynamic language in several ways. It is a vibrant language that absorbs new loan words (words from other languages) continuously. Interestingly, it is the mother tongue of only a fraction of the population of Indonesia and for the rest it is a second language. Overall, it is the second language of nearly 200 million people with varying degrees of proficiency.
Although spoken throughout Indonesia, it is comprehensively used in the urban areas and less so in the rural areas. Indonesian is also a mother tongue to the people of Malaysia, which constitutes 45% of Indonesian speakers. The language is considered to be a vital means of communication in the region, among the other 300 languages spoken there. It is used for business and administrative purposes.
The Indonesian name of the language is Bahasa Indonesia. It came into existence officially in the year 1945. It has a standardized dialect of the Malay language and both of them are quite alike. The language is highly influenced by many other languages such as Sanskrit, Dutch, Arabic, Chinese, Portuguese, etc. It is believed that there are about 750 Sanskrit, 1000 Arabic, 125 Portuguese and a staggering 1000 loan words from Dutch in the modern Indonesian language. A huge majority of Indonesian terminology, however, come from the Austronesian heritage.
The grammatical structure and phonology of the Indonesian language is relatively easy and the basics of communication can be learnt in a few weeks. Indonesian is written in the Latin alphabet and phonetically more consistent than other languages. It was formerly written in the pallawa script, however, with the arrival of Islam, it was later written in the Arabic script.
Most Indonesian people admit that the correct version of the language is not used much in daily conversations. One can see the standard language in books, newspapers, television, etc. Thus, in terms of vocabulary and grammar, the spoken Indonesian is noticeably low compared to its written form.
OutsourcingTranslation provides effective solutions for translation, interpretation and transcription to several companies in the world. We stand out in the market of translation service providers by positioning ourselves entirely on the basis of high-quality work, delivered within a shorter turnaround time and at competitive rates.
Contact us for all your Indonesian translation, transcription and interpretation needs.
Get the Outsourcing Translation Advantage!
