By the year 2020 census, Riau – as the origin of Bahasa Indonesia – has 2.96 million population while the whole Indonesia’s population equals 270.2 million. The name of Riau language is “Melayu”. Bahasa Melayu (bahasa = language) was chosen to be the national Indonesian language.
By accent, actually Bahasa Melayu is not too identical with Bahasa Indonesia — as the ‘offspring’ of Bahasa Melayu.
As a matter of fact, Bahasa Melayu has a little bit accent, while Bahasa Indonesia is more natural.
The capital city Jakarta is the true home of Bahasa Indonesia. It is a metropolitan city with various local ethnics. Majority of Jakarta population are initially migrants and have ethnic origins coming from other than the Jakarta’s indigenous ethnic called ‘Betawi’- which forms 27,65% of Jakarta population.
Generally, the whole Indonesia has accent — except Jakarta. Jakarta people can speak Bahasa Indonesia properly, regardles their ethnic origins. Bahasa Indonesia is their mother tongue since babyhood. Their 1st generation of migrant parents (me myself belong to the 2nd generation) coming from district didn’t speak with the district/local ethnic languages to their sons & daughters.
Why? IDK 😂
Why Melayu, not Javanese language which is spoken by the biggest population from three provinces: Central Java, Yogyakarta and East Java whose population equals 80.88 million or 27.1 % of total 270.2 million of Indonesia’s population? Because Bahasa Melayu had been the lingua franca in Indonesia with a long history before Sumpah Pemuda (Youth Pledge) – as the origin of Bahasa Indonesia becoming the official national language – was initiated in October 28th, 1928, 17 years before Indonesia’s independence day on August 17th, 1945.
Gwebanget Forever 