Terminology 'Indonesia'

The terminology of Indonesia is not necessarily a native idea. The term "Indonesia" is compounded by Indo (Latin word for India or Indus) and Nesos (Greek word for island).

James Richardson Logan, a jurist born in Scotland, worked in Singapore and buried in Penang, is known as the inventor of the terminology Indonesia when writing The Ethnology of the Indian Archipelago in 1850, which expressed, “The name Indian Archipelago is too long to admit of being used in an adjective or in an ethnographical form. Mr (George Samuel Windsor) Earl suggests the ethnographical term Indunesians but rejects it in favour of Melayunesians. I prefer the purely geographical term Indonesia, which is merely a shorter synonym of Indian Islands or the Indian Archipelago. We thus get Indonesian for Indian Archipelagian or Archipelagic, and Indonesians for Indian Archipelagians or Indian Islanders.”

Multatuli used Insulinde in his book Max Havelaar, published in 1860, compounded by “inseln” means islands and “indie.” There were also Malay Archipelago or Le Grand Archipel Malais or Nusantara Malayu Raya (Nusantara Raya) that extended to use.

But it was Adolf Bastian of University of Berlin who popularized the name of Indonesia through his book Indonesien oder die Inseln des Malayichen Archipels 1884-1894. Bastian was then much more popular worldwide than Logan nor Multatuli.

Well, the term Indonesia is finally a Scottish creation, an Indian geography and a German socialization! There is nothing native here.