That's a good point. Now that I think about it, the Indonesians from whom I heard "bahasa" were actually also native Javanese speakers. Bahasa Indonesia is of course a lingua franca, and an increasingly imposing one for minority languages, so maybe that could be a possible source for your point that there are different connotations for insiders and outsiders.

I didn't get your point about "this country". The only thing I know is how it's inappropriate outside the USA, or in a global context, to use America to mean the USA, as of course the rest of the Americas also exist.

The OP's point was that even if you're American, using the phrase "this country" to refer to the US, when you're actually outside the US, is wrong, unlike, say "my country" or "our country". Similarly, it seems "bahasa" is inherently context-sensitive, like saying "our language", which is wrong if the speaker doesn't actually speak the language.

Thanks. Though I still don't understand, it just seems non-sensical to use "this country" when you're outside the country in question, likes it's just a fundamental error of grammar. Can you give me a specific example?

Yes, it's non-sensical, just like it's non-sensical to use a word that basically means "our language" when it's not actually a language that you speak. (Not a grammatical error though, but rather a semantic error, a dangling reference as it were!)

Let's say you don't speak German but keep hearing Germany referred to as "Vaterland" in the media. You might deduce that the word "Vaterland" is synonymous with Germany, and start using it yourself to refer to the country, but that would be wrong, because the word (without additional context) simply means "homeland", typically the speaker's homeland, whatever country that is.

Ahhh, great thanks, I was just overthinking it then

This doesn’t make sense. If the word/phrase expresses a relative relationship to it’s user, then that works on a per user basis. Eg- Non-Americans can say “this country” about their own countries. If the word/phrase is a generic term in a given language, it often ends up having fixed context —- eg “la Raza” as used by Latin American communities.

Besides, the original commenter denied it’s used at all. Gp implies otherwise.

Broadly speaking, this whole business of trying to “own” words on an identity basis is poisonous, corrosive and an abuse of the tool of language.

If a word is widely understood to have the meaning "our language", it's precisely its context-sensitivity that makes it wrong for a non-speaker to use that word to refer to the language, because he/she is not part of the "us". Thinking otherwise is basically telling the native speakers that you, as an ignorant ousider, know better than them how their language and its nuances work.

I agree that a possessive concept shouldn’t be used as a generic. I’m sure mistakes of that nature are made all the time by non-speakers of various languages.

Neither person in the discussion above claimed bahasa means “our language”. The positions were “bahasa=language(generic)” vs “bahasa=also colloquially used to mean Indonesian”.

It was your assertion/conjecture that it actually means “our language”. The (seemingly) native speaker posting the original comment did not make a similar claim.