indonesian

Indonesian, or bahasa Indonesia, is the official language of Indonesia, and is spoken by most Indonesians as a first or other language. The language is descended from the Javanese form of Malay and is written in Latin (Roman) letters. Christianity first arrived on Sumatra in the seventh century. It was re-introduced in the sixteenth century by the Protestant Dutch and the Catholic Portuguese. Today most Indonesian speaking Christians are evangelical Protestant with a large Catholic minority, especially on the island of Java. The first translation of the Scriptures in Javanese Malay was the Ruyl translation of the book of Matthew printed in 1629. The Sehari-hari was produced in 1985. The most popular translation is the Terjemahan Baru Indonesia (TBI) produced by the Indonesian Bible Society (Lembaga Alkitab Indonesia) in 1974 and updated in 1997. The Bahasa Indonesia Masa Kini (BIMK) was printed in 2004. Indonesian is similar to Malay.