Austronesian · ISO 639-3 ban
Balinese Language Basa Bali
Balinese is an Austronesian language spoken by about 4.8 million people in 1 country. It is written in the Latin, Balinese and Javanese scripts.
Where Balinese is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
About the Balinese language
Balinese (Basa Bali) is spoken by about 4.8 million people, which makes it the 191st most spoken language in the world — just behind Paraguayan Guaraní (4.9 million) and ahead of Mainfränkisch (4.8 million). It belongs to the Austronesian language family and, more precisely, to the Bali-Sasak-Sumbawa group within the Bali-Sasak-Sumbawa branch.
Where is Balinese spoken?
Balinese is used in 1 country. The largest communities live in Indonesia (5.1 million).
Balinese is not a national official language anywhere.
Writing system and status
Balinese is written in the Latin, Balinese and Javanese scripts. It is a safe, widely transmitted language: children still learn it at home as their first language.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Sasak.
ISO codes: ISO 639-3 ban.
Frequently asked questions about Balinese
How many people speak Balinese?
Where is Balinese spoken?
What language family does Balinese belong to?
What is Balinese called in Balinese?
Is Balinese an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.