More than 700 living languages are spoken in Indonesi

Language

More than 700 living languages are spoken in Indonesia.^[179] Most belong to the Austronesian language family, with a few Papuan languages also spoken. The official language isIndonesian (locally known as Bahasa Indonesia), a variant of Malay,^[180] which was used in the archipelago, — borrowing heavily from local languages of Indonesia such as Javanese, Sundanese, Minangkabau, etc. The Indonesian language is primarily used in commerce, administration, education and the media, but most Indonesians speak other languages, such as Javanese, as their first language.^[179]

Indonesian language is based on the prestige dialect of Malay, that of the Johor-Riau Sultanate, which for centuries had been the lingua franca of the archipelago, standards of which are the official languages in Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei. Indonesian is universally taught in schools, consequently it is spoken by nearly every Indonesian. It is the language of business, politics, national media, education, and academia. It was promoted by Indonesian nationalists in the 1920s, and declared the official language under the name Bahasa Indonesia on the proclamation of independence in 1945. Most Indonesians speak at least one of the several hundred local languages and dialects, often as theirfirst language. Of these, Javanese is the most widely spoken as the language of the largest ethnic group.^[89] On the other hand, Papua has over 270 indigenous Papuan andAustronesian languages,^[181] in a region of about 2.7 million people.

source wikipedia