More than one million Australians visit Bali and Indonesia each year - but how many of us could hold even a simple conversation in Indonesian?
Each October, Indonesia celebrates ‘Bulan Bahasa’ or ‘language month’ to recognise the nation-building role that Bahasa Indonesia has played in uniting Indonesia’s 278 million people into a single country. But Bulan Bahasa isn’t just for Indonesians.
ACICIS Study Indonesia, based at The University of Western Australia, is a non-profit educational consortium which sends hundreds of Australian university students to study abroad in Indonesia each year, and is again celebrating Bulan Bahasa with a competition encouraging Aussies to send in their favourite Indonesian word.
The winner will get a chance to improve their linguistic skills, with a three-week Indonesian language and culture course in Indonesia up for grabs.
Image: Semester 1, 2023 ACICIS students undertaking a campus tour of Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta during their 3 days orientation.
Director of ACICIS Liam Prince began studying Indonesian as an undergraduate at UWA and continued his language studies through a year of in-country study in Indonesia.
After working in Jakarta as a translator before returning to Australia to work on Indonesia-related education initiatives, Mr Prince is passionate about encouraging more Australians to study Indonesian.
“Bahasa Indonesia is spoken by nearly 280 million Indonesians and once you add in 30 million Malaysians, and hundreds of thousands of Malay speakers in Singapore and Brunei, you’re talking about one of the key languages of the regional neighbourhood in which we live,” Mr Prince said.
“Indonesia is one of our closest neighbours and a significant trading partner and the launch last month of the Australian Government’s new Southeast Asia Economic Strategy to 2040 signals high hopes and big ambitions for growing Australia’s relationship with Indonesia still further.
“Despite this, in 2021 we had fewer than 700 Australians students studying Indonesian at Year 12 level. Bulan Bahasa is a great opportunity to raise the profile of this versatile, expressive and extremely fun language within the wider Australian community.”
The ACICIS Bahasa Sesh Challenge runs from October 1 to 26 and asks Australians to post a video (in English) explaining their favourite Indonesian word.
Last year’s Challenge saw entries from across Australia and internationally, from students, teachers, and academics, as well as serving Indonesian and Australian diplomats including Australia’s Ambassador to Indonesia, Penny Williams, and High Commissioner to Brunei, Luke Arnold.
However, the prize winner was a young Victorian woman with the word ‘curhat’, meaning to have a ‘heart-to-heart’.
Have a favourite Indonesian word? Find out how to enter the Bahasa Sesh Challenge here.
