Image source: Southeast Asian & Caribbean Images (KITLV), University of Leiden 

One of the questions I get asked the most is:

“Indonesia was colonized by the Netherlands for so long, so do Indonesians still speak Dutch?”

My personal answer is: no, I don’t. I didn’t learn Dutch at school, and I don’t know anyone who still speaks it. At school I only learned English and Japanese (and honestly, I speak zero Japanese now). That’s why this question always feels interesting to me, because from the outside it seems logical that Dutch should still be widely spoken in Indonesia.

In June 2025, I posted about this topic on my Instagram. The post went viral quite fast: 197k views, 4,300 likes, and 156 comments (You can see the post here). Many people shared their experiences. Some said that older people in the Moluccas still speak Dutch, and others mentioned that there are communities with Dutch roots in Indonesia. But almost everyone agreed on one thing: the number of Dutch speakers has been decreasing rapidly. As far as I know, there are also no official programs to promote Dutch for people with Dutch ancestry in Indonesia. 

So the big question is: why don’t Indonesians, in general, speak Dutch anymore?
Here I want to explain the historical background behind it.

Dutch Was Never for Everyone

According to Salverda (2013), society in the Dutch East Indies (today’s Indonesia) was marked by strong social and economic inequality, racial discrimination, political oppression, and class divisions. Language was part of this system.

Everaert et al. (2023) explain that Dutch had a very different status in Indonesia compared to English in British colonies. Dutch was not meant to be a language for the masses. It was a language of power and privilege. Children from the elite could attend European schools where everything was taught in Dutch, following the same curriculum as in the Netherlands. Indo-Europeans (people of mixed Indonesian–Dutch descent) theoretically had access too, but in practice they needed to already speak good Dutch. Indigenous Indonesians and Chinese students from the middle class usually went to “Dutch-Indigenous” or “Dutch-Chinese” schools, where Dutch was mixed with Malay or local languages. Meanwhile, many children only attended village schools, which offered just three years of basic education and no serious exposure to Dutch.

So from the beginning, Dutch was never a national language. It was a colonial language spoken by a small, privileged group. 

The Japanese Occupation Changed Everything

In 1942, Japan occupied the Dutch East Indies. As part of their anti-Western policy, the Japanese authorities banned the public use of Dutch (and also English). According to Maier (2005), Dutch-language education was immediately forbidden. Schools stopped teaching in Dutch, and the language disappeared from public life almost overnight. This was a huge turning point. Once Dutch was removed from education, administration, and media, its social importance declined drastically.

After Independence: Dutch Was Politically Rejected 

After Indonesia declared independence in 1945, Dutch became associated with colonial oppression. The new nation needed a language that symbolized unity and freedom. In 1957, President Sukarno officially banned Dutch as a language of instruction in schools due to the political conflict between Indonesia and the Netherlands over West New Guinea. The distribution of Dutch books and magazines was also stopped (Everaert et al., 2023). At the same time, Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) spread rapidly. According to Zein (2020), the population embraced Indonesian with great enthusiasm because it represented national identity and unity. People wanted a language that belonged to them, not to their former colonizers. So Indonesian became not just a practical choice, but a political and emotional one.

So Why Don’t Indonesians Speak Dutch Today? 

In short:

• Dutch was never taught to the majority of the population.

• It was associated with colonial power and inequality.

• It was banned during the Japanese occupation.

• It was officially prohibited after independence.

• Indonesian replaced it as a symbol of unity and nationalism.

• There are no strong programs today to preserve Dutch in Indonesia.

That’s why, unlike English in many former British colonies, Dutch did not survive as a widely spoken language in Indonesia. It remained a historical footprint rather than a living language. And that’s also why, when people ask me whether I speak Dutch, my answer is simple: No. And historically, it makes perfect sense.

Why Isn’t Dutch Taught in Indonesian Schools?

What I find interesting is that Dutch is not even considered as an option in the school system. In Indonesian schools, English is the first foreign language. As a second foreign language, students can usually choose between Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Arabic, or Korean. But Dutch is completely absent from this list.

And this makes me wonder: why?

Historically and culturally, Indonesia and the Netherlands are deeply connected. Our legal system, administration, education structure, and a large part of our vocabulary were influenced by Dutch. Yet linguistically, Dutch is treated as if it has no place in modern Indonesia.

I think there are several possible reasons:

First, Dutch is still emotionally linked to colonialism. Unlike English, which is often seen as a “neutral” global language, Dutch carries a heavy historical burden in Indonesia. Teaching Dutch might feel like reopening old wounds or legitimizing a painful past.

Second, Dutch has limited global economic power. English, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean are associated with international opportunities, technology, pop culture, and global mobility. Dutch, on the other hand, is mainly spoken in the Netherlands and parts of Belgium. From a pragmatic perspective, it may seem less “useful” for students’ futures. 

Dutch as a “Hidden Language” in Indonesia 

Today, Indonesians no longer speak Dutch in daily life. But that does not mean Dutch is a dead language in Indonesia. I would rather call it a hidden language. According to Maier (2005), around 25% of Indonesian vocabulary comes from Dutch, including not only words but also certain structures and ways of thinking. That is huge. Even if we don’t realize it, Dutch is still living inside our language.

I personally feel this very strongly. My mother tongue is Indonesian, and I also speak German, which is closely related to Dutch. When I started learning German, I noticed that many words felt surprisingly familiar. It was like déjà vu. Suddenly, I saw connections between Indonesian, Dutch, and German. Words that I had used all my life in Indonesian turned out to have Dutch origins, and German made this connection even more visible to me.

For example, words like kantor (kantoor – office), polisi (politie – police), universitas (universiteit – university), tante (tante – aunty), or gratis (gratis – free) suddenly made sense in a different way. It felt like discovering a hidden layer of my own language. I realized that Dutch was never really gone; it was just absorbed and transformed into Indonesian. So in a way, many Indonesians “speak” Dutch every day without knowing it.

Maybe Dutch in Indonesia does not need to return as a mainstream language. But as an academic, historical, and cultural language, it still has a place.

"Because Dutch in Indonesia is not dead, it is hidden." - Maier (2005)

References: 

• Everaert, Martin/Pinget, Anne-France/Theuns, Dorien (2023): Speaking Dutch in Indonesia: Language and Identity. In: Supheert, Roselinde/Cascio, Gandolfo/Thije, Jan D. ten (Hg.): The Riches of Intercultural Communication. Leiden: Brill, 3-27.

• Maier, Hendrik M. (2005): A Hidden Language – Dutch in Indonesia. UC Berkeley.

• Salverda, Reinier (2013): 42. Between Dutch and Indonesian: Colonial Dutch in time and space. In: Hinskens, Frans/Taeldeman, Johan (Hg.): Dutch. Boston, Berlin: De Gruyter, 800-821.

• Zein, Subhan (2020): Language Policy in Superdiverse Indonesia. New York : Routledge. | Series: Routledge studies in sociolinguistics: Routledge.