As elsewhere in Indonesia, Bahasa Indonesia or Indonesian is the official language. The young teenager can speak English too.
There are three majority races in West Kalimantan. They are Malays, Dayaks, and Chinese. It's better to use the word Tionghoa instead of Chinese or China when talking. The Malays usually use their own Malay dialect. The vocabulary is almost like Indonesian official words. It's only the speaking intonation only and some vocabularies replacement.
The Dayaks people have their own dialect like Kahayan and Ot Danun.
The Chinese people in West Kalimantan speak various Chinese dialects like Mandarin, Teochew, Hakka, and Cantonese. Some old people, who learn in pre-Indonesian-independence school, can even speak Dutch or German.
Knowing some phrases in local dialects will greatly impress your hosts.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about West Kalimantan
Where To Stay & Best Hotels in West Kalimantan - updated May 2024
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West Kalimantan Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.
