Bahasa Indonesia is the national and official language in the entire country. It is the language of official communication, taught in schools and spoken on television. Bahasa means language, and Bahasa Indonesia is the lingua franca of the archipelago. With over 350 native languages currently in use throughout the country, a good lingua franca is clearly necessary.

Bahasa Indonesia is based on the high Malay language as spoken and written in the Riau Islands, as in the early 19^th century. “Like Malay, Indonesian has been greatly expanded through its borrowings from languages such as “Arabic (in particular many religious terms), Sanskrit, Portuguese, Dutch, certain Chinese dialects and more recently, English (in particular many scientific and technological terms”

The more democratic Malay language was preferred by nationalistic youth above the Javanese language, despite the fact that Javanese is more sophisticated and at the time spoken by the majority population, also Javanese is feudal as it has different levels of language depending on one’s status and the status of the person spoken to.

It’s good to speak a bit of the language of a country you are visiting to, or at least understand commonly used expression or greetings. This surely will allow you to immerse with the people and culture. It also helps to speak a bit of the language when bargaining for souvenirs in the tourism areas, as a little knowledge goes a long way to getting a better price.