[netsharc]

My pet peeve: people calling it "Bahasa". It's called Indonesian. Or "Bahasa Indonesia". Bahasa just means "language".

Do you also ask people if they speak "langue" if you want to know if they speak French?

[_TwoFinger]

Indonesians themselves call it "bahasa". I guess the user you responded to is either Indonesian, or has been there.

[netsharc]

LOL, sibling comment voted to death, because I guess HNers know better than 2 native speakers (I am also one).

If you're talking about Indonesians refererring to Indonesian in an English language context, yeah some of them do this too (like the original commenter I replied to above), I can't imagine a context where an Indonesian would ask someone else in Indonesian if they understood "bahasa", because the Indonesian being asked would wonder "Which language do you mean?".

It would be like a Brit asking someone in London, "Do you speak language?".

But just like there's Singlish in Singapore, there's probably Indonesian English. Another pet peeve of mine is Indonesians using "married" as a verb (in an Indonesian sentence) instead of an adjective.

[_TwoFinger]

> If you're talking about Indonesians refererring to Indonesian in an English language context, yeah

yes, my only source for my previous comment was a passport control officer asking me "do you speak bahasa" at the airport :-)

[user_named]

Correct. I launched a product in Indonesia and our operations team there referred to the language as Bahasa.