Jakarta, Nov. 6 -- Culture Minister Fadli Zon highlighted the need to disseminate and popularize the status of the Indonesian language as one of the official languages of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

"(Indonesian language) has been the 10th official language of UNESCO. I believe this needs to be disseminated," Zon stated at the National Museum here on Thursday.

The minister said that the Indonesian language registered over 300 million speakers in various countries throughout the world.

He added, "Indonesia, Malaysia, Timor Leste, and Brunei are united by their lingua franca, the Indonesian or Malay language," referring to Malay, which has high mutual intelligibility with Indonesian.

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