Southeast Asia Studies | Indonesian Language

Indonesian, or bahasa indonesia, is one of three Southeast Asian languages offered at SAIS. The M.A. and Ph.D. programs require demonstrated proficiency, which includes the ability to understand conversation, a command of the spoken language sufficient for the exchange of political and economic substance in conversation with a native speaker, and the ability to read primary sources and other materials in the international relations field with accuracy and relative speed. As of 2005-06 thirteen students were studying Indonesian. SAIS offers beginning, intermediate, and advanced instruction in Indonesian. 

Speakers of Indonesian are the fourth largest language group in the world today. Indonesian is a variety of the Malay language and belongs to the Austronesian language family, which stretches from Madagascar in the west to Easter Island in the east, and Taiwan in the north to New Zealand in the south.  

When Indonesian independence was proclaimed in 1945, Malay was chosen as the national language. Under the name of Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian language), it serves as a means of communication between the different ethnic groups, and as the language of administration, education and scholarship, the media, and an extensive and rapidly growing modern literature. The standard language is continually being developed and transformed to make it more suitable to the diverse needs of a modernizing society. Knowledge of the national language is therefore indispensable for any real insight into the past and present of Indonesia.

Unlike Burmese, Thai and Vietnamese, Indonesian is not a tonal language. It is written in the roman script.  Students who take Indonesian in a two-year program concentrate in the first year on acquiring the competence in the language.  The second  year concentrates on understanding political and economic issues as well as a higher degree of oral fluency.