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Betawi

About Me and My Language

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Orthography            Morphology            Recording      Wordlist         Language Use

My name is Ismiati Farahnasy and I came from Jakarta. Jakarta is a capital city of Indonesia and the traditional language that is still used by the people is called Bahasa Betawi. This language has been influenced by many languages from different areas, including India, China, etc. I am interested in documenting this language in order to guard against future language loss.  

Contact Email ismiati@hawaii.edu
Preferred name(s) of your language Betawi
Alternative names Batavi, Batawi, Betawi Malay, Jakarta Malay, Melayu Jakarte
Language classification Austronesian, Malayo-Polynesian, Malayo-Sumbawan, North and East, Malayic, Malay, Trade
Geographical areas where spoken Jakarta, Java
Approximate number of monolingual speakers 2,700,000
Other languages spoken in the area/country Petjo, Indonesian, Javanese, Sundanese
Official language(s) in your country Bahasa Indonesia
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Background of the Language

According to the history, Bahasa Betawi is known as batavi, betawi malay, Jakarta Malay and Melayu Jakarta. For hundred years ago, this language already developed and it has been used widely by many people. This language is becoming the most widely-spoken and the most actively use by other people in Indonesia. Based on the history, many countries influenced the creating process of Bahasa Betawi. Most of them came to Jayakarta or Batavia or DKI Jakarta to trade and do some business.  Historically, Bahasa Betawi is mixing of other language from China, Gujarat or India, Arabic, Dutch and Portuguese and there had no native speaker. Recently, most people use this language and it already elaborated become popular language that can be used in our daily life.

To get more information about it please visit: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/06/21/the-perseverance-betawi-language-jakarta.html

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