While some 250 million people speak the Indonesian language, the Bahasa Indonesia is often misconceived as unimportant.

Indonesian people may also think the same thing.

However, top U.S. universities, including the University of California (UC) Berkeley, continue to offer Indonesian language courses -- proof that the language is in fact quite influential.

Others, including Cornell, Yale, Stanford, Northern Illinois, Arizona State and Ohio Universities, as well as the Universities of California Los Angeles and Hawaii Honolulu, offer Indonesian language courses too.

Lecturer Ninik Lunde (second right) chats with her students, David Hembry (left), Isabel F. Esterman (second left) and Kok Lye after an intermediate Indonesian language class in the University of California Berkeley. (JP/Moch. N. Kurniawan)

Ninik Lunde, an Indonesian language lecturer at UC Berkeley for the past 15 years, says Indonesian language has something powerful to offer.

"If you speak Indonesian language, you can communicate with hundreds of millions of people in Indonesia, East Timor, Malaysia and Brunei," she said.

"For researchers or businessmen who are interested in Southeast Asia, the language can help them understand and get along with the people there."

This makes Indonesian language a necessary inclusion in UC Berkeley's study programs, she added.

At UC Berkeley, courses in Indonesian language have been offered for almost four decades, under the departments of South and Southeast Asian Studies.

The course is divided into three levels: introductory Indonesian, intermediate Indonesian and literature.

Between 10 and 15 students usually take each level of the course, which gives them the opportunity to gain a more comprehensive understanding than they could get from a bigger class environment.

In our classes, students learn about oral and written Indonesian language.

"First year students begin to speak basic Indonesian language," Ninik said.

"Lessons for second year students put more weight on a combination of speaking and writing. After that they can start learning about Indonesian literature."

Isabel F. Esterman, a second year graduate student at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism as well as Southeast Asian studies, said she had taken up Bahasa Indonesia because it would support her research into Southeast Asia and her plan to work in the region.

"It's important to connect with people using their language -- not using a translator when you work there," Isabel said, adding that she thinks Bahasa Indonesia is a growing language.

Esterman, who also speaks English and Tagalog, said it is true that Bahasa is simpler than English, but sometimes because of its simplicity, she found something was missing.

David Hembry, a fourth-year PhD student of Environmental Sciences, concurred with Esterman.

David said Bahasa Indonesia would help him communicate with his peers in Indonesia more easily should he realize his plan to go there to do research on plants.

"I am taking the course in Bahasa Indonesia for my second year now, after a break last year," said David, who also speaks English, French and Japanese.

David said Bahasa is relatively easy to learn, but that he found it difficult to use too many passive sentences.

Editha Setiawan, an Indonesian citizen who was born and raised in the U.S, was tempted to learn Bahasa to improve her understanding of her roots, because her father came from Surabaya and her mother from Bojonegoro (both in East Java).

"My father has been working in the U.S. for years, and they both speak to me in Indonesian. But I speak in English most of the time because I grew up here. I could understand when people talked to me in Indonesian, but wasn't able to respond properly using Bahasa," she said.

The fourth-year UC Berkeley undergraduate student majoring in Molecular and Cell Biology and Public Health, said she had to leave her comfort zone to take the Indonesian language classes.

"I understand Indonesian language better now," she said. "Besides, I always enjoyed my time in Indonesia -- getting along with my extended family -- so learning Indonesian language will certainly help me have a better time there."

Ninik hopes the Bahasa Indonesia language course at UC Berkeley will one day receive funds from private firms, like the Japanese language courses there, to improve the program.

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