Indonesia Has 718 Regional Languages, Their Distribution by Province

According to the Ministry of Education and Culture (Kemendikbud)—now the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education, the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology, and the Ministry of Culture—as of 2019, 718 regional languages were recorded in the country.

These languages are spoken by people in various provinces. For example, there are 326 regional languages in Papua. One of them is the Aabinomin language, spoken by the Aabinomin ethnic group in Baso Village, Mamberamo Hulu District, Mamberamo Raya Regency.

Meanwhile, in Banten, 3 regional languages are recorded as being used by the community there, namely Javanese, Lampung Cikoneng, and Sundanese. In the Riau Islands Province, 1 regional language is recorded as being spoken by the population, namely Malay.

The 10 provinces with the highest number of regional languages spoken by their inhabitants are:

1. Papua: 326 regional languages

2. West Papua: 102 regional languages

3. East Nusa Tenggara: 72 regional languages

4. Maluku: 62 regional languages

5. Central Kalimantan: 23 regional languages

6. Central Sulawesi: 21 regional languages

7. North Maluku: 19 regional languages

8. East Kalimantan: 16 regional languages

9. South Sulawesi: 14 regional languages

10. Southeast Sulawesi: 14 regional languages.

Mapping of regional languages was conducted by the Language and Textbook Development Agency of Kemendikbud from 1991 to 2019. A total of 718 regional languages (excluding dialects and subdialects) in Indonesia have been identified and validated from 2,560 observation areas.

According to Kemendikbud, this finding utilizes dialectology, a branch of linguistics focusing on spatial variations in language, indirectly touching upon issues of endangered languages, language death, mother tongue rights, language destruction, and language ecology.

Kemendikbud explains that this finding is purely based on dialectometric calculations. Dialectometry is a statistical calculation used to determine the degree of difference and similarity between the regions under study.

On the other hand, Kemendikbud states that because the data collected is only from 2,560 points, and has not yet reached the target of 7,000 observation points, there is a possibility that some regional languages have been missed or not yet identified.

“Remote languages, languages of isolated tribes, and immigrant languages may not have been comprehensively recorded,” stated Kemendikbud.