Indonesia is the common and official name to refer to the Republic of Indonesia or Indonesian archipelago; however, other names, such as Nusantara and East Indies are also known. Some names are considered obsolete and confined to certain periods of history, while some might be more geographically specific or general.
On identifying geographical names of their lands, the Indonesian natives seldom transcend their traditional boundaries, which is relatively small confined in their tribal environs. There are around 1,300 distinct native ethnic groups in Indonesia, and 742 different languages, [1] [2] which add to the complexity and nonconformity on the naming of the region. The concept of identifying the whole archipelagic region that today forms Indonesia with a single name was unknown then. Geographical names usually applied to individual islands, such as Java, one of the earliest identified islands in the Indonesian archipelago. It was foreign traders and explorers from India, China, the Middle East, and Europe who finally chose the names of this region.
The following ancient names were originally the names for some of the islands in present-day Indonesia (as pars pro toto ).
The island of Java was the earliest island within Indonesia to be identified by the geographers of the outside world. "Yavadvipa" is mentioned in India's earliest epic, the Ramayana. It was mentioned that Sugriva, the chief of Rama's army, dispatched his men to Yawadvipa, the island of Java, in search of Sita. [3]
Suvarnadvipa, "Golden Island", may have been used as a vague general designation of an extensive region in Southeast Asia, but over time, different parts of that area came to be designated by the additional epithets of island, peninsula or city. [4] In contrast, the ancient name for the Indian subcontinent and its culturally familiar surrounding regions is Bhāratavarsha or Bhāratakhanda. [5] In ancient Indonesia, the name Suvarnadvipa is used to designate Sumatra island; as counterpart of neighbouring Javadvipa or Bhumijava (Java island). Both Java and Sumatra are the principal islands in Indonesian history.
The great island of Iabadiu or Jabadiu was mentioned in Ptolemy's Geographia composed around 150 CE in the Roman Empire. Iabadiu is said to mean "barley island", to be rich in gold, and have a silver town called Argyra at the west end. The name indicated Java, [6] and seems to be derived from the Hindu name Java-dvipa (Yawadvipa). Despite the name's indicating Java, many suggest that it refers to Sumatra instead. [6]
The following names were originally the names present day Indonesia and several other surrounding states (as totum pro parte ). They are mostly exonyms.
Eighth-century Arab geographers identified the whole Maritime Southeast Asian region as "Jawi" (Arabic:جاوي). The word "Jawi" (جاوي) is an adjective for the Arabic noun Jawah (جاوة). Both terms may originate from an Indian source, the term "Javadvipa", the ancient name for Java, or from Javanese source because (Javanese : ꦗꦮꦶ, romanized: jawi) is the Javanese Krama form of the word (Javanese : ꦗꦮ, romanized: jawa) to mean Java (geographically: ꦠꦤꦃꦗꦮꦶ, romanized: tanah Jawi, or ethnically: ꦠꦶꦪꦁꦗꦮꦶ, romanized: tiyang Jawi). [7] [8] "Jawah" and "Jawi" may have been used by the Arabs as catch-all terms referring to the entire Maritime Southeast Asia and its peoples. [9] Today, the term Jawi is also used to describe the Jawi alphabet, the Arabic script that has been used and modified to write in Southeast Asian languages, especially Malay.
Nanyang (南洋) (literally meaning "Southern Ocean"), is a Chinese term denoting the greater Maritime Southeast Asia region not only Indonesia, but also including Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Brunei, but usually excluding other mainland Southeast Asian nations, especially the other nations on the Indochinese peninsula. It came into common usage in self-reference to the large ethnic Chinese migrant population in Southeast Asia. Nanyang is contrasted with Dongyang (Eastern Ocean), which refers to Japan.
Insulindia or Insulinde, is an archaic geographical term [10] [11] [12] for Maritime Southeast Asia, encompassing the entire area situated between Australasia and Indochina. [13] More common in Portuguese and Spanish, [14] [15] [16] it is a combined word (portmanteau) from insula ("island") and india (India).
The following names were endonym alternatives to "Indonesia".
The Sunda Islands are a group of islands in the Indonesian Archipelago. [17] They consist of the Greater Sunda Islands (roughly western part of present Indonesia) and the Lesser Sunda Islands (roughly southeastern part of present Indonesia).
The Sunda Islands are divided between four countries, namely Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia and Malaysia. The majority of these islands fall under the jurisdiction of Indonesia. Borneo is divided between Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia. Timor Island is divided between East Timor and Indonesia. Two small islands also belong to East Timor.
Sunda (Sundanese : ᮞᮥᮔ᮪ᮓ, romanized: sunda) is the name of the ethnic group living in western part of Java Island. Today the Sundanese are the second largest such group in Indonesia after the Javanese.
Nusantara is an Indonesian word for the Indonesian archipelago. [18] It originated from Old Javanese and literally means "archipelago". [19] The name derived from the Old Javanese words.
The word Nusantara was taken from an oath by Gajah Mada in 1336, as written on an old Javanese manuscript Pararaton and Negarakertagama. [20] Gajah Mada was a powerful military leader and prime minister of the Majapahit Empire who was credited with bringing the empire to its peak of glory. Gajah Mada delivered an oath called Sumpah Palapa, in which he vowed not to eat any food containing spices until he had conquered all of Nusantara under Majapahit.
In 1920, Ernest Francois Eugene Douwes Dekker (1879–1950), proposed "Nusantara" as a new name for this country instead of "Indonesia". He argued that the name was more indigenously developed, which did not contain any words etymologically inherited from the name Indies, Indus or India. [21] This is the first instance of the term Nusantara appearing after it had been written in Pararaton manuscript.
The definition of Nusantara introduced by Douwes Dekker is different from its 14th century definition. During the Majapahit era, Nusantara was described as vassal areas to be conquered, the overseas possessions of Majapahit, in contrast with Negara Agung or the core of Majapahit. However, Douwes Dekker did not want this aggressive connotation, so he defined Nusantara as all the Indonesian regions from Sabang as far as Merauke. Although Douwes Dekker's proposal did not succeed, and the name "Indonesia" remained in use for the nation's name, the name "Nusantara" has been widely used in literature, printed and broadcast news materials and popular publications, thus it has become the synonym for Indonesia. Nusantara was chosen as the name for the new capital city of Indonesia.
Starting with Hindia-Belanda, academics began to refer the present day Indonesia with a single term. After the 1945 independence, the country officially adopted Indonesia as its formal name.
The term "the Indies" derived from the Indus River flowing through modern-day Pakistan, India and western Tibet. It was applied by the ancient Greeks to most of the regions of Asia to the east of Persia. This usage dates at least from the time of Herodotus, in the 5th century BC (see Names of India). The term "Indies" was first used by European geographers to identify the geographic region of the Indian Subcontinent, and the islands beyond.
After the discovery of America, the term was modified to include "east", to distinguish the area from the area associated with Columbus' discoveries, called the West Indies. During the age of exploration in the 16th century, "East Indies" became a term used by Europeans to identify what is now known as Indian subcontinent or South Asia, Southeastern Asia, and the islands of Oceania and Maritime Southeast Asia. [22] During that era, the East Indies portion now called "Indonesia" fell under Dutch colonial control and therefore was referred to as Dutch East Indies.
Indonesia derives from the Greek script, Indus (Ἰνδός), meaning "Indian Ocean", and nésos (νῆσος), meaning "island". [23] The name dates to the 18th century, far predating the formation of independent Indonesia. [24] In 1850, George Windsor Earl, an English ethnologist, proposed the terms Indunesians — and, his preference, Malayunesians — for the inhabitants of the "Indian Archipelago or Malayan Archipelago". [25] In the same publication, a student of Earl's, James Richardson Logan, used Indonesia as a synonym for Indian Archipelago. [25] [26] However, Dutch academics writing in East Indies publications were reluctant to use Indonesia. Instead, they used the terms Malay Archipelago (Maleische Archipel); the Netherlands East Indies (Nederlandsch Oost Indië), popularly Indië; the East (de Oost); and Insulinde. [27]
After 1900, the name Indonesia became more common in academic circles outside the Netherlands, and Indonesian nationalist groups adopted it for political expression. [27] Adolf Bastian, of the University of Berlin, popularised the name through his book Indonesien oder die Inseln des Malayischen Archipels, 1884–1894. The first Indonesian scholar to use the name was Suwardi Suryaningrat (Ki Hajar Dewantara), when he established a press bureau in the Netherlands, Indonesisch Pers-bureau, in 1913. [24] Between 1910 and 1915, Swiss linguist, Renward Brandstetter wrote An Introduction to Indonesian Linguistics in 4 essays, which was translated into English in 1916. It talked about the various similarities between languages in the region, and pioneered the concept of Common Indonesian [words] and Original Indonesian [words].
Although the name was originally meant for scientific purposes, on 28 October 1928, the name "Indonesia" gained more political significance when the native pro-independence nationalist youth in the Dutch East Indies declared the Youth Pledge, acknowledging Indonesia as one motherland, one nation, and upholding Indonesian as the language of unity. [28]
Malayunesia is another name next to Indunesia that was proposed by George Samuel Windsor Earl to identify the archipelago. [29] It was a Greek translation of the Malay Archipelago also connected to the concept of Malay race, the inhabitant of the archipelago. It was said that Windsor Earl prefer the name Malayunesia (Malay Archipelago) instead of Indunesia (Indian Archipelago), because Malayunesia is an appropriate name for the Malay archipelago, while Indunesia can also refer to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Maldives. He also argues that Malay language is spoken throughout the archipelago.[ citation needed ]
Some literature works and poems describe Indonesia in eloquent poetic names, such as Zamrud Khatulistiwa ("Equatorial Emerald"), which refers to Indonesian green and lush tropical rainforest as the emeralds, as well as the geographic position of Indonesia, along the equator. It was originally from the Dutch phrase Gordel van Smaragd ("Emerald of the Tropic") which coined by Multatuli (a pen name used by Eduard Douwes Dekker, a 19th-century Dutch writer, who described Dutch East Indies as "'t prachtig ryk van Insulinde dat zich daar slingert om den evenaar, als een gordel van smaragd" ("the beautiful empire of Insulinde that girdles the equator like a belt of emerald"). [30]
Other local epithets such as Bumi Pertiwi ("Land of Earth or Mother Earth"), refer to Indonesia through its national personification, Ibu Pertiwi, and Tanah Air (Indonesian lit: "soil and water"), an Indonesian word for "homeland", motherland, or mother country.
Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 156.4 million people, Java is the world's most populous island, home to approximately 56% of the Indonesian population. Indonesia's capital city, Jakarta, is on Java's northwestern coast.
Majapahit, also known as Wilwatikta, was a Javanese Hindu-Buddhist thalassocratic empire in Southeast Asia that was based on the island of Java. It existed from 1292 to c. 1527 and reached its peak during the era of the queen Tribhuvana and her son Hayam Wuruk, whose reigns in the mid-14th century were marked by conquests that extended throughout Southeast Asia. This achievement is also credited to the famous prime minister Gajah Mada. According to the Deśavarṇana written in 1365, Majapahit was an empire of 98 tributaries, stretching from Sumatra to New Guinea; including territories in present-day Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, southern Thailand, Timor Leste, southwestern Philippines although the scope of Majapahit sphere of influence is still the subject of debate among historians. The nature of Majapahit's relations and influence upon its overseas vassals and also its status as an empire still provokes discussion.
The Sunda Islands are a group of islands in the Malay Archipelago. They consist of the Greater Sunda Islands and the Lesser Sunda Islands.
The Javanese are an Austronesian ethnic group native to the central and eastern part of the Indonesian island of Java. With more than 100 million people, Javanese people are the largest ethnic group in both Indonesia and in Southeast Asia as a whole. Their native language is Javanese, it is the largest of the Austronesian languages in number of native speakers and also the largest regional language in Southeast Asia. As the largest ethnic group in the region, the Javanese have historically dominated the social, political, and cultural landscape of both Indonesia and Southeast Asia.
The Malay Archipelago is the archipelago between Mainland Southeast Asia and Australia, and is also called Insulindia or the Indo-Australian Archipelago. The name was taken from the 19th-century European concept of a Malay race, later based on the distribution of Austronesian languages. It has also been called the "Malay world," "Nusantara", "East Indies" over time. The name is controversial in Indonesia due to its ethnic connotations and colonial undertones, which can overshadow the country's diverse cultures.
Nusantara is the Indonesian name of Maritime Southeast Asia. It is an Old Javanese term that literally means "outer islands". In Indonesia, it is generally taken to mean the Indonesian Archipelago. Outside of Indonesia, the term has been adopted to refer to the Malay Archipelago.
Maritime Southeast Asia comprises the Southeast Asian countries of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and East Timor.
Gajah Mada, also known as Jirnnodhara, was a powerful military leader and mahapatih of the Javanese empire of Majapahit during the 14th century. He is credited in Old Javanese manuscripts, poems, and inscriptions with bringing the empire to its peak of glory.
The Melayu Kingdom was a classical Buddhist kingdom located in what is now the Indonesian province of West Sumatra and Jambi.
The Indonesian archipelago is a vast and diverse collection of over 17,000 to 18,000 islands located between the Indian and Pacific Oceans in Southeast Asia and Oceania. It is the world's largest archipelago, with five main islands—Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Sulawesi, and New Guinea. The Indonesian archipelago is known for its rich biodiversity, unique wildlife, and varied ecosystems, ranging from tropical rainforests to active volcanoes. The archipelago boasts a diverse cultural heritage, with thousands of ethnic groups and languages. Its strategic location and natural resources have made it a historically significant trade hub and a key player in regional and global affairs. Historically, the Indonesian archipelago was influenced by various cultures and empires, including Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms, Islamic sultanates, and European colonial powers, before gaining independence in 1945 as the state of "Indonesia".
There are 1,340 recognised ethnic groups in Indonesia, making it one of the most diverse countries in the world. The vast majority of those belong to the Austronesian peoples, with a sizeable minority being Melanesians. Indonesia has the world's largest number of Austronesians and Melanesians.
Sri Maharajadiraja Sri Kertanagara Wikrama Dharmatunggadewa, Kritanagara, or Sivabuddha, was the last and most important ruler of the Singhasari kingdom of Java, reigning from 1268 to 1292. Under his rule Javanese trade and power developed considerably, reaching the far corners of the Indonesian archipelago.
The history of the arrival of Islam in Indonesia is somewhat unclear. One theory states that Islam arrived directly from Arabia as early as the 9th century, during the time of the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates. Another theory credits Sufi travelers for bringing Islam in the 12th or 13th century, either from Gujarat in India or from Persia. Before the archipelago's conversion to Islam, the predominant religions in Indonesia were Hinduism and Buddhism.
A Borobudur ship is an 8th to 9th-century wooden double outrigger sailing vessel of Maritime Southeast Asia, depicted in some bas-reliefs of the Borobudur Buddhist monument in Central Java, Indonesia. It is a ship of the Javanese people, and derivative vessels of similar size continued to be used in East Java coastal trade at least until the 1940s.
Insulinde (1913–1919), a direct successor of the Indische Party (IP) and later renamed the Nationale Indische Party (NIP), was a political organization that represented efforts by some Indo Eurasians to identify and cooperate with the Indigenous educated élite of the Dutch East Indies in an effort to establish an independent dominion. The organisation was mainly led by Indo-European and Javanese activists, but had a considerable membership in the South Moluccas. It was considered part of the more radical political wing in the colony, for which it faced much oppression from the colonial authorities.
The Indian influences in early Philippine polities, particularly the influence of the Srivijaya and Majapahit thalassocracies on cultural development, is a significant area of research for scholars of Philippine, Indonesian, and Southeast Asian history, and is believed to be the source of Hindu and Buddhist elements in early Philippine culture, religion, and language. Because the Indonesian thalassocracies of Srivijaya and Majapahit acquired many of these Hindu and Buddhist elements through Indianization, the introduction of such elements to early Philippine cultures has sometimes been referred to as indianization. In more recent scholarship, it is termed localization, as in, e.g., localization of Hindu and Buddhist beliefs. Some scholars also place the Philippine archipelago within the outermost reaches of the Indosphere, along with Northern Vietnam, where the Hindu and Buddhist elements were not directly introduced by Indian travellers.
Istinggar is a type of matchlock firearm built by the various ethnic groups of the Maritime Southeast Asia. The firearm is a result of Portuguese influence on local weaponry after the capture of Malacca (1511). Before this type of gun, in the archipelago already existed early long gun called bedil, or Java arquebus as the Chinese call it. Most of the specimens in the Malay Peninsula are actually Malaysian in origin, manufactured in the Langkasuka lands of Kedah. The states of the Malay Peninsula imported this firearm as it was widely used in their wars.
Bedil is a term from Maritime Southeast Asia which refers to various types of firearms and gunpowder weapons, from small pistols to large siege guns. The term bedil comes from wedil and wediluppu in the Tamil language. In their original form, these words refer to gunpowder blast and saltpeter, respectively. But after being absorbed into bedil in the Malay language, and in a number of other cultures in the archipelago, Tamil vocabulary is used to refer to all types of weapons that use gunpowder. The terms bedil and bedhil are known in Javanese and Balinese. In Sundanese the term is bedil, in Batak it is known as bodil, in Makasarese baddilik, in Buginese, balili, in Dayak language, badil, in Tagalog, baril, in Bisayan, bádil, in Bikol languages, badil, and in Malay it is badel or bedil.
The Javanese diaspora is the demographic group of descendants of ethnic Javanese who emigrated from the Indonesian island of Java to other parts of the world. The Javanese diaspora includes a significant population in Suriname, with over 13% of the country's population being of Javanese ancestry. Other major enclaves are found in French Guiana, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Caledonia, Singapore, South Africa, and Sri Lanka.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) Youth Pledge Museum website (Indonesian)
