What is Bahasa Indonesia?
The word bahasa means language. Bahasa Indonesia means 'Indonesian language'. It's the national language of the Republic of Indonesia. Although only 60 years old in terms of its political independence, Indonesia is an old country historically and culturally, and Indonesian (or more correctly its predecessor, Malay) has been around for quite a few hundred years.
Indonesia's national motto is Bhinneka Tunggal Ika which means Unity in Diversity, reflecting the country's enormous cultural diversity - some 250 to 300 different ethnic groups, each with their own distinct languages (not dialects). These local languages (or bahasa daerah, meaning 'regional language') are mostly used in the home, or in the village, between members of the same ethnic group, but for communication with outsiders, Indonesians use their national language, 'bahasa Indonesia', or Indonesian.
Many Indonesians are bilingual, trilingual or even multi-lingual and in fact, if you really want to get into the hearts and minds of Indonesian people, you'll probably need to learn a little of one of the regional languages too one day (but after you get more fluent in Indonesian!). Incidentally, Indonesian is a sister dialect of Malaysian (also called bahasa Malaysia), spoken across the straits in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. Indonesian and Malaysian are mostly mutually intelligible, but vary from each other a bit like two diverse dialects of English, such as, for example, Scottish English and Texan English.
There is a saying in Indonesian: 'Bahasa menunjukkan bangsa', meaning 'A language reflects it people'. It is true that you can't separate a language from the socio-cultural context in which it is used. So as you learn more about Indonesian language in this course, you will also inevitably learn much about the country, the customs, the beliefs and values of Indonesians, our nearest Asian neighbours. There's another saying worth quoting here: 'Kalau tak kenal, maka tak sayang', which translates as 'If you don't know, you can't like'. This means of course that one cannot develop true appreciation of something without taking the trouble to learn about it.
We hope that in the course of learning Indonesian, you will find much of value in what you learn, not only in terms of gaining a better understanding of another country, its language and culture, but - paradoxically perhaps - a better understanding of your own background, society, beliefs and values.
What's Indonesian like?
In many ways, it's easy to learn, at least in the early stages. Indonesian is written in the same alphabet used for English, so there are no new scripts to grapple with. It doesn't make distinctive use of tones, and most of the sounds it uses are readily able to be mastered by someone from an English-language background. Grammatically, Indonesian doesn't have complex sets of agreement rules, tense and plurals, as are found in many European languages.
So, no real problem. However, as you go along you'll find that Indonesian is just as complex and challenging to master as any other language. One soon learns that Indonesian is interesting and creative in the way it often applies familiar or ordinary meanings to new or unexpected contexts. For example: makan means 'to eat'. It's a bit surprising to find then that when you apply the brakes in a car, they 'makan' (=bite). (It's even more surprising to find that in some cars, they don't makan!!!). The same word makan is used to talk about taking time ('makan waktu' = eat/consume time), to take up space ('makan tempat' = eat/consume place/room). And if someone has 'eaten lots of salt' (sudah banyak makan garam) it doesn't mean they badly need to drink something, but rather that they have acquired lots of experience. So, whilst in terms of its grammar, Indonesian may often be considered not too difficult, it is in the area of vocabulary that learners sometimes feel challenged (isn't that a nice way of saying it?).
On the topic of vocabulary, we have a very simple view: the more words and meanings you know, the more you'll be able to understand and make yourself understood. Later in the course we'll try to teach you ways of learning vocab more efficiently, but the real key is: makan, makan, makan! Eat up new vocab, soak up as much as you can, don't baulk at hearing or seeing or learning new words, but file them away in your vocab book or better still, your portable hard disk (= brain, for all you humanoids out there), for future use!