Betawi is a Malay-based creole of the Austronesian family, native to Indonesia and spoken in and around Jakarta by the Betawi people as well as by Arab Indonesian, Benteng Chinese and Mardijker communities. Its traditional dialects, used for in-group communication within the Betawi community, differ significantly from Colloquial Jakartan Indonesian, though the two now exist on a continuum in which traditional Betawi functions as the basilect and Standard Indonesian as the acrolect. The 2000 census recorded about 5 million native speakers, though the precise number is difficult to determine because the name is used loosely; the traditional varieties are now seriously endangered, spoken mostly by older generations in a few peripheral neighborhoods, while Colloquial Jakartan Indonesian has become the region's dominant lingua franca.
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