Balinese language
| Balinese | |
|---|---|
|
ᬪᬵᬱᬩᬮᬶ, ᬩᬲᬩᬮᬶ Basa Bali, Bhāṣā Bali |
|
 |
|
| Region | Bali, Nusa Penida, Lombok and Java, Indonesia |
| Ethnicity | Balinese, Bali Aga |
|
Native speakers
|
3.3 million (2000 census) |
| Latin, Balinese | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | bali1278 |
Balinese or simply Bali is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by 3.3 million people (as of 2000[update]) on the Indonesian island of Bali, as well as northern Nusa Penida, western Lombok and eastern Java. Most Balinese speakers also know Indonesian. Balinese itself is not mutually intelligible with Indonesian, but may be understood by Javanese speakers after some exposure.
In 2011, the Bali Cultural Agency estimates that the number of people still using Balinese language in their daily lives on the Bali Island does not exceed 1 million, as in urban areas their parents only introduce Indonesian language or even English, while daily conversations in the institutions and the mass media have disappeared. The written form of the Balinese language is increasingly unfamiliar and most Balinese people use the Balinese language only as a spoken tool with mixing of Indonesian language in their daily conversation. But in the transmigration areas outside Bali Island, Balinese language is extensively used and believed to play an important role in the survival of the language.
The higher registers of the language borrow extensively from Javanese: an old form of classical Javanese, Kawi, is used in Bali as a religious and ceremonial language.
The official spelling denotes both /a/ and /ə/ by a. However, a is usually pronounced [ə] when it ends a word, and [ə] occurs also in prefixes ma-, pa- and da-.
Stress falls on the last syllable.
The word order is similar to that of Indonesian, and verb and noun inflectional morphology is similarly minimal. However, derivational morphology is extensive, and suffixes are applied to indicate definite or indefinite articles, and optionally to indicate possession.
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Wikipedia