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Madurese (6,770,000), Minangkabau (5,530,000), Betawi (5,000,000), Buginese
(5,000,000), Acehnese (3,500,000), Balinese (3,330,000), Makassarese (2,130,000), Sasak
(2,100,000), Lampungese (1,834,000), and Gorontalo (1,000,000) (Lewis et al., 2015). The
total number of the speaker populations of these fourteen large languages is 174,579,000
people This makes up approximately 70% of Indonesia’s overall population of 255 million
people projected in 2015. On Indonesia’s population see, for example, Badan Perencaan
Pembangunan Nasional (BAPENAS) and Badan Pusat Statistik (BPS) (2013).
Geographally, the larger and smaller regional languages follow a geographical pattern
of distribution with the larger languages in the west of the country, Sumatra, Java, Madura,
Bali, Madura, western Nusa Tenggara and Sulawesi, and the smaller languages the east of
Indonesia, Maluku, Papua and Western Papua.
Although bilingualism is widespread, there are still monolinguals who speak only one
regional language. The number of these is 89.4 million which is 35.44% of the population.
The trend is for younger Indonesians to have Indonesian as their first language, but they
will still be bilingual with some ability in one or more regional languages. There are also a
number of lingua francas, other than Indonesian, which are used to improve communication
where there are a number of mutually unintelligible languages in one area.
Another perspective on language is its status in the sense of its relative vitality or its
relative vulnerability to a downward trend in its speaker population. While there are 719
languages recorded in Indonesia, 13 of these no longer exist as they have become extinct.
This leaves 706 living langauges, languages which still have speakers. The fourteen largest
languages, with populations of a million or more are mostly strong, but there are many
among the smaller languages which are threatened.
Linguists and others see the loss of regional languages as something regrettable and
have made various attempts to protect them. These efforts can be to maintain, revitalize
or record them. The particular approach taken depends on the degree of vitality or
endangerment. This may range between growing, strong, weak, dying and extinct. Efforts
to maintain or revitalize weak languages can be made but where languages are dying, little
can be done except to document the language before it disappears. Attempts to document
a number of dying languages have been made (Lauder, 2007a, Lauder, 2011a, Lauder,
2007b, 2011b, Lauder and Sugono, 2011, Lauder and Lauder, 2012b, c). Most experts
concede that succeeding in such efforts is by no means easy as the forces putting pressure
on small communities is so great. Language revitalization efforts can be supported by
appropriate language policy and planning. Indonesia’s policy from independence has been

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