Indonesian language in modern Indonesian, 1,000 Arabic loans, some of Persian and Hebrew origin, some 125 words of Portuguese, some of Spanish and Italian origin, and 10,000 loanwords from Dutch. The vast majority of Indonesian words, however, come from the root lexical stock of Austronesian (including Old Malay). The study of Indonesian etymology and loan words reveals both its historical and social contexts. Examples are the early Sanskrit borrowings from the 7th century during the trading era, the borrowings from Arabic and Persian during the time of the establishment of Islam in particular, and those from Dutch during the colonial period. Linguistic
Ambelau people cultural, social and economic ties with Ambelau island. Ambelau minorities also live in other parts of Buru, on Ambon and other Maluku Islands and in Jakarta. During the Dutch colonization in the first half of the 17th century, most Ambelau people were forced to move to Buru to work on the Dutch spice plantations. The nation speaks Ambelau language, which belongs to the Central Maluku branch of the Malayo-Polynesian languages. Most of Ambelau people also speak Indonesian or Ambonese Malay ("Melayu Ambon"), which is a creolized form of Malay. The vast majority are Sunni Muslims with a small fraction of