Balinese Language - 130
The Balinese language, known locally as “Basa Bali,” is a member of the Austronesian language family, which is one of the world’s largest language families and is spoken in various parts of Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, and Madagascar. Basa Bali specifically belongs to the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup within the Austronesian family.
Basa Bali is primarily spoken on the Indonesian island of Bali, as well as in parts of Lombok and Java, which are neighbouring islands. It’s worth noting that while Balinese is the native language of the Balinese people, Indonesian (known as “Bahasa Indonesia”) is the official language of Indonesia and is used for formal education, government, and media.
Balinese has a number of different dialects, with the most prominent being the Low Balinese (Bali Alus) and High Balinese (Bali Kasar) dialects. These dialects can vary significantly in terms of pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar.
The script traditionally used to write Balinese is a Brahmic script called “Aksara Bali.” It is an abugida, meaning that each character represents a consonant with an inherent vowel sound that can be changed with diacritics. However, in modern times, the Latin script has also been used to write Balinese.
