Welcome to Indonesian A Beginner's Survey of the Language

Anyone traveling to Indonesia will have a much more rewarding trip if the study Indonesian. Using a self-study book is a great way to learn Indonesian because the Indonesian language has very simple grammar and even uses a romanized alphabet! One can go straight to learning beginner Indonesian vocabulary, thinking about how to compose sentences, and putting such knowledge into practice in the various situations where people meet and talk. Further, One's use of Indonesian vocabulary and Indonesian grammar will improve to the extent that one can deepen this knowledge with an understanding of what expressions are appropriate in a given setting, what cultural and social assumptions underlie what we say and how we say it, and how the language fits into its linguistic and historical context.
This concise book aims to introduce the reader to the Indonesian language not by creating a course, with grammar and exercises, but by describing it from various points of view, such as telling what it is related to and how it has developed, and on this basis saying where some of its words originate, as a means of familiarization with some common examples. After that, the description moves on to talk about the kinds of words one wold expect to meet, and how they can be put together as sentences, before providing a few examples of journalistic prose as well as some more literary specimens, in order to give a feeling for the language and whet the appetite for further exploration of this fascinating subject. Welcome to Indonesian includes:
- Chapter 1: What is Indonesian?.
- Chapter 2: Bahasa Indonesia as the National Language.
- Chapter 3: A Historical Overview.
- Chapter 4: The Development of Modern Indonesian.
- Chapter 5: Indonesian and Malaysian.
- Chapter 6: The colloquial Dimension, Influence of Dialek Jakarta.
- Chapter 7: What is Indonesian Related to?.
- Chapter 9: Loanwords in Indonesian.
- Chapter 10: The Indonesian Word.
- Chapter 11: The Indonesian Sentence.
- Chapter 12: Journalistic Prose.
- Chapter 13: A Literary Dimension.
- Suggestions for Further Reading.
- Glossary of Indonesian Words.
And so, Welcome to Indonesian!