Why do Indonesians call their language Bahasa Indonesia when the proper term is Bahasa or Bahasian? Isn't that redundant ?
AAARGH, This is exactly the reason why I strongly oppose calling the Indonesian language “bahasa”.
“bahasa” in Indonesian means “language”, so “bahasa Indonesia” means “Indonesian language”. I know it sounds redundant in English, but in Indonesian, we use the term “bahasa” to disambiguate between the country, people, or language. For example:
- Indonesia = Indonesia (country)
- Saya dari Indonesia = I am from Indonesia
- Bahasa Indonesia = Indonesian (language)
- Saya berbicara bahasa Indonesia = I speak Indonesian
- Orang Indonesia = Indonesian (people)
- Saya orang Indonesia = I am Indonesian
You can apply it to other languages as well, for example:
- Prancis = France (country)
- Saya dari Prancis = I am from France
- Bahasa Prancis = French (language)
- Saya berbicara bahasa Prancis = I speak French
- Orang Prancis = French (people)
- Saya orang Prancis = I am French
As you can see, you can apply “bahasa” to any language, such as “bahasa Inggris” (English), “bahasa Melayu” (Malay), “bahasa Bengali” (Bengali), etc.
So when you ask me “Do you speak bahasa?” it’s akin to asking me “Do you speak language?” and I will respond to you “Which language?”.
To call it “Bahasian” is even much worse. It’s akin to calling English as “Languagian”, Vietnamese as “Tiengian”, or Dutch as “Taalian”. Sounds like gibberish to me.
Just imagine someone asks you “Do you speak Languagian?”, I don’t know how to respond to that.
I’m curious and trying to google the keyword “Bahasian” and this is what I found:
So please, at least if you really want to call Indonesian “bahasa”, use “bahasa Indonesia” instead, although the term “Indonesian” is much better.
I’d love it if you changed “Do you speak bahasa?” to “Do you speak Indonesian?
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