Are there any Dutch words that you have heard commonly used in Bahasa Indonesia?
Jeroen: It’s funny that you should ask me this. Most people wouldn’t even think about it, but there are hundreds of words in Bahasa Indonesia that are similar to current Dutch or at least very similar to it. These words root back until the 17th century actually, and most of the very early words have changed dramatically over the time. The word ‘handuk’ (towel) was the first Dutch-originated word that I found in Bahasa Indonesia. Handuk came from the Dutch word ‘handdoek’. The pronunciation is the same but differs a little because of the fact that the Indonesian language has slightly different stresses than Dutch. I can give a very short summary of Dutch and Indonesian words which are the same, but that would be a huge list to start with. The only thing I’m still thinking about is where ‘jalan’ came from… I can’t figure that one out, street or ‘straat’ (Dutch) would be an easy word to use in Indonesia, but they didn’t. Just as a side note, there are some English words in the Indonesia
