When it is about the language, we should open the map and start to look at the Malay Peninsula in the 7th century, which now known as the location of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. 






and the Strait of Malacca was a busy international trading route in far Asia and the dominant ethnic in this region was the Malay people who spoke Malay language in several dialects. During time, the three main regions (Indonesia-Malaysia-Singapore) facing different political challenges by the European separately. The Malay-Riau people who settled in Riau Archipelago became closer to the greater island, Sumatra, while Malay people in Singapore and Malaysia dealing with different history. 

Years of trading activities had built cultural bonding between the Malays in Sumatra, Java with Sunda Kelapa port, Bali, Borneo, and Sulawesi with Makassar port, resulting the Riau-Malay as their lingua franca. 

In the early 19th century, the islanders were familiar to poem written by Raja Ali Haji, the Malay-Buginese poet. It is called Gurindam 12 (The Twelfth Aphorism) written in Riau-Malay which later became one of the references of standardised Indonesian language. 




Under the colonialism era, in 1928, young scholars from different islands who were identified as Jongs; Jong Java, Jong Batak, Jong Celebes, Jong Sumateranen Bond, Jong Islamieten Bond, Jong Ambon, and etc initiated the Youth Congress I & II and announced The Youth Pledge:



They declared to be united as the same people in the same homeland and speak the same language namely Bahasa Indonesia. The pledge then became the symbol of war against colonialism, raising nationality in their home-islands and to build the independent country known as Indonesia today.

After the declaration in 1945, Bahasa Indonesia was periodically adjusted and enriched by words from other local languages, making it more and more different with Malay language spoken in Malaysia and Singapore. Bahasa Indonesia also has loan words from Sanskrit, Dutch, English, Portuguese, Arabic, and Chinese.

Bahasa Indonesia is the unifying language of over 1.300 ethnicities in Indonesia and contains words from over 300 local languages, spoken by more than 270 million people in different dialects on each island. 

In 2025, Bahasa Indonesia is the 10th most-spoken language worldwide, taught in Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Australia, Kanada, Netherland, Japan, and in other 27 countries.


LINGKA merupakan blog yang didedikasikan untuk mendukung generasi muda Indonesia dalam belajar Bahasa Inggris.