Bahasa Indonesia — the national language of Indonesia — may soon become recognized as an official language of the United Nations (UN), after a proposal was made by UNESCO on May 25, 2023.
The proposal was made with the intent of recognizing the linguistic and cultural diversity of Indonesia, which is currently the fourth-most populous country in the world, and the one with the largest Muslim majority.
With more than 300 ethnic groups and 700 other local languages spread across the Indonesian archipelago, recognizing the language would also mark it as one of the factors for unification and harmony within the nation.
"If agreed in the November 2023 session, the Indonesian language will officially become an international language along with other languages," said Halimi Hadbrata, the head of the East Kalimantan Language Agency.
"Our language will become an international language, and laws related to it and the idea of Pancasila will be translated into international languages, including discussion and so on," he added.
An approval by the UN General Assembly would mean that the language will become the seventh official language of the UN, alongside Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish, and become used in all official documents and meetings of the UN and its subsidiary agencies such as UNESCO and the World Bank Group (WBG).
Currently, Bahasa Indonesia is spoken by about 300 million people across the globe, with speakers identified in places such as neighboring Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, East Timor, and Papua New Guinea.
Hadibrata added that the language was now ready to go global, and that this development coincides with the goal set at the Bahasa Indonesia Congress to make the language an international one by 2025.
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