section_path: Demographics/Ethnic groups and languages
section_name: Ethnic groups and languages
paragraph_text: Ethnic groups and languages
  
  Indonesia is an ethnically diverse country, with around 1,300 distinct native ethnic groups. Most Indonesians are descended from Austronesian peoples whose languages had origins in Proto-Austronesian, which possibly originated in what is now Taiwan. Another major grouping is the Melanesians, who inhabit eastern Indonesia (the Maluku Islands, Western New Guinea and the eastern part of the Lesser Sunda Islands).
  
  The Javanese are the largest ethnic group, constituting 40.2% of the population, and are politically dominant. They are predominantly located in the central to eastern parts of Java and also in sizeable numbers in most provinces. The Sundanese are the next largest group (15.4%), followed by Malay, Batak, Madurese, Betawi, Minangkabau, and Bugis people. A sense of Indonesian nationhood exists alongside strong regional identities.
  
  The country's official language is Indonesian, a variant of Malay based on its prestige dialect, which had been the archipelago's lingua franca for centuries. It was promoted by nationalists in the 1920s and achieved official status in 1945 under the name Bahasa Indonesia. Due to centuries-long contact with other languages, it is rich in local and foreign influences. Nearly every Indonesian speaks the language due to its widespread use in education, academics, communications, business, politics, and mass media. Most Indonesians also speak at least one of more than 700 local languages, often as their first language. Most belong to the Austronesian language family, while over 270 Papuan languages are spoken in eastern Indonesia. Of these, Javanese is the most widely spoken and has co-official status in the Special Region of Yogyakarta.
  
  In 1930, Dutch and other Europeans (Totok), Eurasians, and derivative people like the Indos, numbered 240,000 or 0.4% of the total population. Historically, they constituted only a tiny fraction of the native population and remain so today. Also, the Dutch language never had a substantial number of speakers or official status despite the Dutch presence for almost 350 years. The small minorities that can speak it or Dutch-based creole languages fluently are the aforementioned ethnic groups and descendants of Dutch colonisers. This reflected the Dutch colonial empire's primary purpose, which was commercial exchange as opposed to sovereignty over homogeneous landmasses. Today, there is some degree of fluency by either educated members of the oldest generation or legal professionals, as specific law codes are still only available in Dutch.