ABSTRACT
Malay-Indonesian is an Austronesian language spoken in many diverse forms throughout Southeast Asia. The indigenous name of the language is Bahasa Melayu (literally, ‘the Malay language’), but in Indonesia the standard language and some regional colloquial varieties are known as Bahasa Indonesia (‘the Indonesian language’). Similar varieties of standardised Malay-Indonesian serve as the national languages of Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, and Singapore; 2 the latter three are particularly close to each other. This chapter, unless otherwise noted, will be dealing with the most widely used variety, standard Indonesian, which will be referred to simply as ‘Indonesian’. Standard Malay as used in Malaysia will be referred to as ‘Malaysian’. 3
