Publisher's Synopsis
This phrasebook contains both parallel sentences and vocabulary lists organized by subject for English and Bahasa Indonesian. It also includes a section of more than 2,000 terms which are the same or nearly the same in both languages (cognates).With over 300 ethnic groups spread across over 13,500 islands, the world's fourth most populous nation, this improbable nation has managed to unify under a common language known as Bahasa Indonesian or simple Indonesian. This book will make a great companion volume to Indonesia, Etc by Elizbeth Pisani. Whether you visit Jakarta regularly on business, or are planning a dream vacation to the islands, this book will help you to communicate with the locals.Indonesian (ind), an Austronesian language, is a standardized form of Malay and is spoken throughout Indonesia. About 30 million people speak Indonesian as their first language and a further 140 million speak it as a second language. Indonesia is a linguistically diverse region where the Indonesian language acts as a lingua franca, even though there are more native speakers of Javanese - about 75 million.During the time Indonesia was a Dutch colony, the Latin alphabet was introduced to write Indonesian and a number of Dutch spellings were used. This alphabet was called ejaan lama (Old Script) in Indonesian.In the 1930s, as part of the independence movement, the Indonesian language was standardized and the term Bahasa Indonesia was adopted as the name of the language.
