Lita Sembiring

Of course you have heard the greeting Selamat Pagi, which simply means “Good Morning”. And you may also have heard Selamat Tidur which is ‘Good Night; Sleep Well’.

Yet, selamat does not mean ‘good’!

Do you know what ‘Happy Birthday’ or ‘Happy Anniversary’ is in Indonesian?

It is Selamat Ulang Tahun

There is also Selamat Tahun Baru or ‘Happy New Year.’

But selamat also does not mean ‘happy’!

And how do you say ‘good bye’?

Most textbooks will teach you that selamat tinggal and selamat jalan are used for ‘good bye’ where you say selamat tinggal when you leave, and selamat jalan when the other person leaves. That’s correct, but they are only used when someone embarks on as longer trip. To just casually say ‘bye’ simply use mari.

You also use selamat to congratulate someone.

You can use selamat or selamat, ya to say ‘congratulation’!

So, what then is the meaning of selamat?

Selamat simply means ‘safe’ or ‘unharmed’. It is also used to say ‘survive’.

Selamat is a loan word from Arabic سَلَامَة salāma meaning ‘good health’ ‘well-being’ and ‘safety’. It is not only used in Indonesian and Malay, but in a number of other languages as well.

Learn the Indonesian Language (Bahasa Indonesia) with Indonesian Online

https://indonesian-online.com

About Indonesian Online

Learn Bahasa Indonesia with Indonesian Online. «The Indonesian Way» is our beginner textbook. But we do not only offer courses for the beginner level. We have two intermediate level textbooks, «BacaYuk», and «Aneka Baca». We also have four e-learning interactive textbooks for the advanced level: «Serba Serbi Nusantara», «Anak Jalanan», «Ada apa dengan Cinta», and «Pak Bei». Altogether we offer learning materials for over 600 hours.

«The Indonesian Way» (TIW) is an electronic textbook for beginners. With over 100 lessons, it is by far he most comprehensive textbook to learn beginning Indonesian. «The Indonesian Way» will elevate your Indonesian language skills from the novice up to the intermediate level.

«The Indonesian Way» consists of 113 lessons. Each lesson takes 60 to 90 minutes to complete. The lessons are truly interactive and exciting. There are more than thousand interactive exercises, hundreds sound files, about 2000 digital vocabulary flash cards, hundreds of pictures and videos, and 35 tests. Each lesson includes a word list, digital vocabulary flash cards. Of course we also offer detailed grammar explanations and cultural notes. For more effective vocabulary learning we use the spaced repetition software Anki. Our own IndoLingo application serves as a tool to assist you actively practice speaking bahasa Indonesia! The language we teach is both formal and informal Indonesian.

Each time when you log in to Indonesian Online account, the IP from where you log on is recorded, and hence we know from what country you accessed indonesian-online.

We don’t consistently keep track from where our customers log in, but within the last four days, we had log-ins from 14 countries: 6 from Asia: Brunei Darussalam, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, Viet Nam; 4 from Europe: Spain, Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom; 2 from the Americas: Canada, USA. We also had multiple logins from Australia.

By and large, our customers are fairly equally divided between Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Americas. But within these geopolitical regions, there are large differences. In the Americas, almost all of our customers are from Canada and the USA, and almost none from Latin America.

I am not aware that we have a single customer from Latin America, Africa, or South Asia, nor have I seen an IP address pointing to one of the countries of those regions. The same is true for the dozens of countries where Arabic, Persian, and Turkic languages are spoken.

And that brings us to a related topic. In what countries is Indonesian taught? This question is difficult to answer as the picture constantly changes, and there are too many private language schools. So let’s concentrate on research universities where Indonesian is taught.

We found 13 countries that have at least one university that teaches Indonesian. Most are located in Asia, followed by Australia and Europe:

By far the single most important country for Indonesian language studies is still Australia where Indonesian is not only taught at most research universities but also at high schools, and in some places also at intermediate and primary schools. Each year, Indonesian is taught to about 100,000 students in Australia. Compare that to less than 500 for the entire United States.

In Europe, the only country where the Indonesian language is taught at more than two universities is Germany. Indonesian is taught at universities in Berlin, Bonn, Cologne, Constance, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Leipzig, and Passau, and many of these universities afford full professors in Indonesian. Unfortunately Indonesian language studies are rare outside of Germany. One should think that teaching and learning Indonesian is widespread in the Netherlands, but there is only one Indonesian language program at Leiden University. In France, Indonesian is taught in Paris and La Rochelle, and in Russia in Moscow and Leningrad. Among the remaining 40 European countries, Indonesian is only taught at one university in Naples, Italy.

In the United States, nine universities (UCL Berkeley, UCL Los Angeles, Cornell, Hawaii, Michigan, Yale, Ohio, Northern Illinois, Wisconsin) offer permanent Indonesian language courses, and only at one university is Indonesian taught by a professor — and that will most likely change once I retire.

In Asia, Indonesian is taught in only six countries: China, Israel, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Thailand. China alone is reported to have more than 10 universities with Indonesian language programs.

Do you know of any other places where Indonesian is taught? Please let us know!