From what I've seen, they usually choose not to deal with it. We got bahasa sastra, which translates to kinda like 'literary language' and it is kind of a correct and precise Indonesian. This is changing though, and there are now more homegrown writers that incorporate local vernacular.
Are the regional tongues intelligible to people from other areas? Depends! There are various types of Sundanese in West Java, so the people who speak them might understand each other for the most part. However, I do not understand Javanese at all, much to the chagrin of my dad. Actually I don't understand any other regional language in Indonesia, so. The alphabets also vastly differ. For example, Javanese script looks like Sanskrit, but Batak script is more cuneiform-like.
re: local Indonesian TV shows. Usually they stick to the lingua franca, with the occasional phrase in the vernacular. But! Recently there was a soap opera called 'Muslimah' that routinely spoke in FOUR languages -- Indonesian, English, Sundanese, and Arabic. The last three were subtitled in Indonesian. It was a crap show but I love that it had all these languages!
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Are the regional tongues intelligible to people from other areas?
Depends! There are various types of Sundanese in West Java, so the people who speak them might understand each other for the most part. However, I do not understand Javanese at all, much to the chagrin of my dad. Actually I don't understand any other regional language in Indonesia, so. The alphabets also vastly differ. For example, Javanese script looks like Sanskrit, but Batak script is more cuneiform-like.
re: local Indonesian TV shows. Usually they stick to the lingua franca, with the occasional phrase in the vernacular. But! Recently there was a soap opera called 'Muslimah' that routinely spoke in FOUR languages -- Indonesian, English, Sundanese, and Arabic. The last three were subtitled in Indonesian. It was a crap show but I love that it had all these languages!