A new lesson was added to Serba Serbi Nusantara, our reader for advanced Indonesian, which now has 35 lessons. In this lesson, and in the next few lessons that we plan to develop, we are focusing on Indonesia, its people, languages, and cultures.
The lesson is entitled “Mengenali Keragaman Suku Bangsa di Indonesia” (Recognising Indonesia’s Ethnic Diversity).
According to the 2010 Population Census, Indonesia has more than one thousand ethnic groups. That alone is already astonishing. But what is really surprising is that the two largest ethnic groups already count for 55% of Indonesia’s population. The largest ethic group is quite well known, and you can find out in the following quiz which one it is (can you guess?). The second largest ethic group, on the other hand, is much lesser known – at least outside of Indonesia.
And what a lot of people don’t know is that the third-largest ethnic group are the Malays. Outside of Indonesia, Malays are always associated with Malaysia, but Indonesia is in fact the homeland of the Malay people. More Malays live in Indonesia than in Malaysia.
Another fact that is relatively seldom known is that the Malay language is a national language in four countries: in Indonesia (where it is called Indonesian), in Malaysia, in Brunei Darussalam, and in Singapore.
And here’s the quiz, as promised: