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Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) is the official language of Indonesia. It is a standardized register of the Malacca dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries.
Indonesia is the fourth most populous nation in the world. Of its large population, the number of people who fluently speak Indonesian is fast approaching 100%, making Indonesian, and thus Malay, one of the most widely spoken languages in the world.
Most Indonesians, aside from speaking the national language, are often fluent in another regional language (examples include Javanese, Minangkabau and Sundanese) which are commonly used at home and within the local community. Most formal education, as well as nearly all national media and other forms of communication, are conducted in Indonesian. In East Timor, which was an Indonesian province from 1975 to 1999, Indonesian is recognised by the constitution as one of the two working languages (the other being English), alongside the official languages of Tetum and Portuguese.
The Indonesian name for the language is Bahasa Indonesia (literally "the language of Indonesia"). This term can sometimes still be found in written or spoken English.
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