Indonesia ranks second place in terms of the world’s most linguistically diverse countries (the number one country is Papua New Guinea, which essentially occupies half of an island, the other half belonging to Indonesia). Of course, when a country has more than 700 indigenous languages, as Indonesia does, it’s crucial that a national lingua franca is established to facilitate smooth communication across the country, and that’s the role Indonesian plays. But for the majority of Indonesians, Indonesian is not their native language.
Given that there are so many of them, most Indonesian languages are small and only spoken in specific regions. Batak Angkola, with roughly 750,000 speakers, is one of the biggest ones in the country, although it’s one of the smaller Batak languages. Toba Batak is the most widely spoken and most prestigious Batak language, so Batak Angkola faces threats not only from Indonesian but also from neighboring Toba Batak—and that’s why it’s so important to take action to help preserve the Batak Angkola language now. At TranslationServices.com, we’re proud to help in our own way, by providing high-quality Batak Angkola translation services.
If you want a free quote for our Batak Angkola translation services, reach out today and ask for one!
What Batak Angkola is like
Most Batak Angkola speakers are found in South Tapanuli Regency in the province of North Sumatra, located, of course, in the northern portion of Sumatra Island, although Padang Sidempuan, North Padang Lawas Regency, Padang Lawas Regency, and a small part of North Mandailing Regency also host Batak Angkola speakers. The language bears many similarities to its neighboring Batak languages, particularly Toba Batak and Mandailing, not just in pronunciation and grammar but also in writing, as modern-day Batak Angkola speakers have largely shifted from the historical Batak script and now use the Latin alphabet.
Batak Angkola is a Mayalo–Polynesian language, something it has in common with most languages in Indonesia, and exhibits a default verb-object-subject word order. Only around 3% of global languages use such a word order by default. Verbs take a number of prefixes, affixes, and circumfixes that are largely derivative (i.e., creating new words, such as making verbs from nouns), and tense information is conveyed through pre-verbal particles. Batak Angkola also has a special determiner used with human proper nouns, a feature it shares with Hawaiian.
We’re ready to translate both to and from Batak Angkola.
Since Batak Angkola is an endangered language, our translators are passionate about providing translation services for it—translating from Batak Angkola offers the ability to share Batak Angkola culture with outsiders, and translating into the language creates more opportunities for speakers to use it. We’ve specifically built a translation team that can handle various types of translation jobs, including translating historical documents or traditional literature in Batak Angkola, even in the Batak script. Any contemporary works are also fair game. And as for translating into Batak Angkola, our translators can work with research questionnaires, instructional material, and entertainment content, from books and poems to websites, apps, and games. In all cases, we promise high-quality, accurate translation.
Let’s start your Batak Angkola translation project today. Just get in touch with your project details!