The Indonesian Language (Bahasa Indonesia)

Today's video is all about the Indonesian language (Bahasa Indonesia), its history and development, its features, and its colloquial varieties called Bahasa Gaul. Special thanks to Evan Chandra for his audio samples and help with Bahasa Gaul!

Special thanks to: BJ Peter DeLaCruz, Michael Cuomo, Nicholas Shelokov, Sebastian Langshaw, Brandon Gonzalez, Brian Michalowski, Adrian Zhang, Vadim Sobolev, Yixin Alfred Wong, Raymond Thomas, Simon Blanchet, Ryan Marquardt, Sky Vied, Romain Paulus, Panot, Erik Edelmann, Bennet, James Zavaleta, Ulrike Baumann, Ian Martyn, Justin Faist, Jeff Miller, Stephen Lawson, Howard Stratton, George Greene, Panthea Madjidi, Nicholas Gentry, Sergios Tsakatikas, Bruno Filippi, Sergio Tsakatikas, Qarion, Pedro Flores, Raymond Thomas, Marco Antonio Barcellos Junior, David Beitler, Rick Gerritzen, Sailcat, Mark Kemp, Éric Martin, Leo Barudi, Piotr Chmielowski, Suzanne Jacobs, Johann Goergen, Darren Rennels, and Caio Fernandes for their generous Patreon support.

Music:

Main: “Raw Deal” by Gunnar Olsen.

Outro: “Circular” by Gunnar Olsen.

Intro: Tobu - Roots [NCS Release]

Tobu

[Langfocus]

(Note: if you sign up for a premium account, Langfocus gets a small referral fee that helps support this channel. But if I didn't like it, I wouldn't recommend it!)

[pantheratigris]

If you're not Indonesian and you speak standard Indonesian, it is OK. Indonesian will respond to you with standard Indonesian too.

[sugiripmurti]

This video is a result of careful & serious research. As an Indonesian, I really appreciate your effort in making this video. Thank you!

[dvst]

An Indonesian viewer here, and here are my answers to the questions you asked at the end of the video :

Personally, my native language is Bahasa Indonesia, neither one of all other variety of languages spoken here. It's because I was raised speaking Bahasa Indonesia since my parents are from different ethnicity and they also had to live approximately 1000 kilometers away from where they originated.

I use standard Indonesian to speak to older people, to speak in classrooms, or to speak formally. It is (obviously) a more polite language to use. Bahasa Indonesia and bahasa Gaul is very similar in comparison with English and its Slang words. If you use standard Indonesian at the wrong time, you will often get called a person that's 'impolite'.

For bahasa Gaul, I use it casually in day-to-day basis to friends and on the internet, and to family members. People prefer using bahasa Gaul since it is very simple and if you speak the language, you'll also get called 'gaul' or 'kekinian' (Which in English, roughly translates to 'a cool kid' or 'a modern kid'). If you're close enough with a person, it is preferred to use bahasa Gaul instead of standard Indonesian. Some people can get uncomfortable if you use standard Indonesian to speak with someone close enough since you will sound very serious, and in most cases people will think that there is a problem. Hence why you used standard Indonesian to sound more mature in the 'problem-solving progress'.

Hopefully my answer could help you guys in determining 'when to' and 'when not to' use bahasa Gaul/bahasa Indonesia.
Cheers!

*Keep up the good work, Paul!

[RobertMurphy-sxlc]

I learnt Indonesian at high school in Sydney (Australia) in 1968-69 and as a part-time course at Uni in 1970. I also studied German. The one thing we had to do extra was to learn a bit of Nederlands because most of the history books for Indonesia were still in Nederlands. At the end of 1970 I moved to Cape Town (South Africa) and due to my German and Nederlands studies, I quickly learnt Afrikaans, and I was also surprised that my Indonesian was also helpful with the Cape Malays who also spoke/speak a broken form of Malay, which I could reasonably understand.

[crystalizedapple]

Fun fact,
"apakah kamu mau duduk?"
"apa kamu mau duduk?"
"kamu mau duduk? "
"apa mau duduk?"
"mau duduk?"
"duduk?"
they all can have the same meaning, which is "do you want to sit?" and the shorter it is the less formal it can be

[DimiStranaHD]

Aku org Brunei yg bisa/dapat/boleh memahami bahasa melayu Indonesia dan bahasa melayu Malaysia.. sebab kenapa? sebab kita ini serumpun yg sejak awal bahasa melayu adalah bahasa kita di NUSANTARA tpi setelah dipisahkan oleh penjajah... rata2 skrg bnyk org nga/tidak kenal apa itu serumpun... jdi jgn hairan kalau ada org ckp/bilang "ini bukan bahasa melayu, ini adalah bahasa indonesia ataupun ini bukan bahasa indonesia, ini adalah bahasa melayu" ... sebab kita ini adalah serumpun pada awalnya.. !!

[yez]

Japanese: has various levels of politeness
Indonesian: has various levels of *casualty*

[koolchick]

I'm from Mexico 🇲🇽 and I'm trying to learn this beautiful language since I have so many friends from Indonesia (Sumatra, Java and Gorontalo). I hope I can learn since the alphabet is not different like the other languages from Asia.
Thanks for this video, it's very interesting.

[farrelsirah]

Indonesia adalah bahasaku
Ulangan bahasa Indonesia: 70
Ulangan bahasa Inggris: 96

[lonnstar]

Awesome, I love it. When I lived in Jakarta as a Marine guarding the U.S. Embassy I mainly spoke Bahasa Jakarta or "Jakartay" as we would sometimes say when I spoke with my Indonesian friends. We never called it Bahasa Gaul. We always considered it slang and were sometimes admonished by older people as they considered it improper. I miss Indonesia. Of all the countries I have visited and learned languages I loved Indonesia the most.

[DBT]

FYI, most of indonesians are born bilingual.. except for the one who lived in the city like Jakarta for a looong time.(they just can understand the bahasa indonesia in his/her childhood)
Their first or second language is bahasa indonesia, and their second or first language is their tribe's language :) annndd we got english in the school.. soo basically some students or educated ppl can speak 3 language.. trilingual.(if they studied well)

some muslims(not all muslims) can also fluently speak arabic, some chinese(not all of chinese) in here can also fluently speak chinese(mandarin/cantonese/etc), and also in some highschool, arabic, mandarin, japanese, french, german are being thought.
So.. some indonesians can speak up to 5 languages(or more).. even not fluently.

[weldisini]

As a Filipino, I really wanted to learn Bahasa Indonesia. Hopefully I could meet someone to teach me or exchange language hehe
(Saya cinta bahasa indonesia <3)

[Babamcat]

Actually, STANDART BAHASA INDONESIA are only used at the moment :
1. Formal
2. Textbook
3. News (on TV)

In daily life, we using our local language 😁 and also Bahasa Gaul 😂

[syxca]

we're also learn Bahasa Indonesia in Rotterdam
Greetings from Dutch 🇳🇱🇳🇱🇳🇱

[oenwilson]

12:51 I am a native Filipino studying Indonesian as my first secondary language. I picked it for two particular reasons: 1) I watched your video on how similar Indonesian and Filipino are so I decided to learn it, 2) it will set me up for more complex languages I'm planning on learning like Swedish and Japanese. I don't really have any close friends or relatives that are native to Indonesia, rather I have one facebook friend who is Malaysian. We speak in English most of the time, but when I want to practice my Indonesian, I talk to her in that language and she can still understand pretty much everything. I feel like standard Indonesian is good for beginners and in my opinion, if you want to actually learn casual conversations, you might as well experience living in Indonesia so you can get the real deal. Either way, standard Indonesian is good for starters, but if you want to learn the dialects, might as well go to Indonesia. Which I wish I could do though, there's still a pandemic and I'm only 14 as of writing this comment.

[yourgirl]

A West Papuan here, :), to answer your question, I only speak Standard Indonesian when I have to read an official document or present something in class. For everyday use however, with friends, parents, teachers, and even strangers, I use a dialect called Papuan Malay. Though for older people, I use a more polite version. Standard Indonesian is usually considered too stiff by people around here. I can write in Standard Indonesian very well though.

p.s. To be truthful, I think I speak English way better than I speak Standard Indonesian, haha.

[arirudenko]

I'm originally from the US, and have been living in Indonesia for over 8 years now. Great intro to the language! Glad you brought up the differences between gaul and standard. For sure, I rarely use proper Indonesian except for formal writing. I am an artist, and so a degree of gaul is still normal in more formal art settings like lectures and classes. It's just too stiff to use the really proper language. I live in Solo, central Java and the Gaul is pretty different from Jakarta, very heavily mixed with kasar (informal/rough) level Javanese language. I also have close friends from Papua and east Indonesian accents and vocab is really different. But Indonesian in all its forms is very fun to learn, and of course Indonesians are in general super friendly and love to teach it.

[MrGorgeousnature]

Saya Suka Kamu, just put this together lol, I'm visiting Indonesia next few weeks! Greeting from Laos!!

[thatjuicychicken]

Javanese is more simple!
1.English: Walking on side of the road carefully.
2.Indonesian: Berjalan di pinggir jalan dengan hati hati.
3.Javanese: Mlipir.

(Edit:Thanks for 1000 likes)