Sasak language
| Sasak | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Indonesia |
| Region | Lombok |
| Ethnicity | Sasak |
|
Native speakers
|
2.7 million (2010) |
| modified Balinese script,Latin | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | sasa1249 |
Linguistic map of Lombok, based on 1981 data. Areas with Sasak speakers are shown in green, and Balinese speakers in red.
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The Sasak language is spoken by the Sasak ethnic group, which make up the majority of the population of Lombok in Indonesia. It is closely related to the Balinese and Sumbawa languages spoken on adjacent islands, and is part of the Austronesian language family. Sasak has no official status; the national language, Indonesian, is the official and literary language in areas where Sasak is spoken.
Some of its dialects, which correspond to regions of Lombok, have a low mutual intelligibility. Sasak has a system of speech levels in which different words are used depending on the social level of the addressee relative to the speaker, similar to neighbouring Javanese and Balinese.
Not widely read or written today, Sasak is used in traditional texts written on dried lontar leaves and read on ceremonial occasions. Traditionally, Sasak's writing system is nearly identical to Balinese script.
Sasak is spoken by the Sasak people on the island of Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, which is located between the island of Bali (on the west) and Sumbawa (on the east). Its speakers numbered about 2.7 million in 2010, roughly 85 percent of Lombok's population. Sasak is used in families and villages, but has no formal status. The national language, Indonesian, is the language of education, government, literacy and inter-ethnic communication. The Sasak are not the only ethnic group in Lombok; about 300,000 Balinese people live primarily in the western part of the island and near Mataram, the provincial capital of West Nusa Tenggara. In urban areas with more ethnic diversity there is some language shift towards Indonesian, mainly in the forms of code-switching and mixing rather than an abandoning of Sasak.
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