The Evolution of Indonesia`s Name Throughout History

JAKARTA, NETRALNEWS.COM - Prior to being given the name Indonesia, it appears that our nation went by a number of different names before settling on Indonesia. What names did those have prior to Indonesia? The names, as compiled from various sources, are listed below.

An old Chinese document claims that people previously referred to Indonesia as the South Sea Islands, or Nan-hai. Then, the Indians also used the term Dwipantara, which means Opposite Land Islands, to refer to Indonesia. Al-Jawi Jaza\'ir, which translates to "the Islands of Java," is the name the Arabs gave to our country at the time.

When our nation was first named, it was known as the Indies (Hindia). Herodotus, a Greek historian who lived from 484 to 425 BC, gave this name, and it has been used frequently since Vasco da Gama led the Portuguese to the region in 1498.

Following the Portuguese, the Dutch, who had ruled Indonesia, arrived. The arrival of Cornelis de Houtman in 1596 came before theirs. Our nation was first given the name Nederlandsch Oost-Indie by the Dutch, which was later changed to Nederlandsch Indie.

Additionally, proposals for the name of our nation were suggested. The most well-known was the suggestion made by Multatuli, another name for Eduard Douwes Dekker.

He suggested using the name Insulinde, which translates to "the Indian Archipelago," to refer to our country. Evidently, Insulinde was a less well-known moniker. Insulinde may only be remembered by locals of Bandung as the name of a former bookstore that was located in Jalan Otista.

As Dr. Setiabudi, Ernest Francois Eugene Douwes Dekker, the grandson of Multatuli\'s brother, advocated a name for our country in the 1920s that did not contain the word India. It was Nusantara, a name that has been losing popularity for many years.

The ancient Majapahit document Pararaton, which was discovered in Bali at the end of the 19th century, served as the inspiration for Setiabudi. J.L.A. Brandes translated it, and Nicholaas Johannes Krom published it in 1920.

The Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia (JIAEA), an annual scientific journal, was then published in Singapore in 1847. It was run by James Richardson Logan (18191869), a Scotsman with a law degree from the University of Edinburgh. Then in 1849 an English ethnologist, George Samuel Windsor Earl (1813-1865), joined as the editor of JIAEA magazine.

Earl published a paper titled "On the Leading Characteristics of the Papuan, Australian, and Malay-Polynesian Nations" in Volume IV of JIAEA in the year 1850, pages 6674. Earl argued in the article that it is now necessary for the inhabitants of the Indian or Malay Archipelago to have individual names because the term "Indian" is inappropriate and sometimes confused with other references to India. Earl suggested Indunesia or Malayunesia as two names.

Earl claimed that he chose the name Malayunesia (Malay Archipelago) over Indunesia (Indian Islands) because Malayunesia was more suitable for the Malay people and their language, but Indunesia can also be used for Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and the Maldives.

In the meantime, Logan chose the name Indunesia that Earl dropped for an article in the same book and changed the letter U to an O for better pronunciation. Indonesia came to be known as a result.

Since then, Logan has constantly referred to Indonesia in his scientific papers, and over time, scientists working in the fields of geography and anthropology have started to use the term as well. Adolf Bastian (18261905), an ethnology professor at the University of Berlin, presented the findings of his research on our country between 1864 and 1880 in five volumes of the book "Indonesien or die Inseln des Malayischen Archipel" in 1884.

The Bastian book gave rise to the idea that Bastian was responsible for popularizing the name Indonesia among Dutch academics. Although, Bastian took the name Indonesia from Logans books.

And finally, the term Indonesia is still in use today. Would there be a name change once more, as there was a long-running rumor that Indonesia would revert to the name Nusantara?