This article explains the phonology of Malay and Indonesian based on the pronunciation of Standard Malay, which is the official language of Brunei and Singapore, "Malaysian" of Malaysia, and Indonesian the official language of Indonesia and a working language in Timor Leste. There are two main standards for Malay pronunciation, the Johor-Riau standard, used in Brunei and Malaysia, and the Baku (lit. 'standard' in Malay/Indonesian), used in Indonesia and Singapore. [1]
The consonants of standard Bruneian, [2] Malaysian [3] and also Indonesian [4] are shown below. Non-native consonants that only occur in borrowed words, principally from Arabic, Dutch, English and Sanskrit, are shown in parentheses. Some analyses list 19 "primary consonants" for Malay as the 18 symbols that are not in parentheses in the table as well as the glottal stop [ʔ]. [5] [6]
Labial | Dental | Denti-alv./ Alveolar | Post-alv./ Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||||
Plosive/ Affricate | voiceless | p | t | t͡ʃ | k | ( q ) | ( ʔ ) | |
voiced | b | d | d͡ʒ | ɡ | ||||
Fricative | voiceless | ( f ) | ( θ ) | s | ( ʃ ) | ( x ) | h | |
voiced | ( v ) | ( ð ) | ( z ) | ( ɣ ) | ||||
Approximant | l | j | w | |||||
Trill | r |
Orthographic note: The sounds are represented orthographically by their symbols as above, except:
Notes
Loans from Arabic:
Distinct | Assimilated | Example |
---|---|---|
/x/ | /k/, /h/ | khabarخَبَرْ[ˈhabar], kabar[ˈkabar] ('news') |
/ð/ | /d/, /l/ | reda, rela ('good will') |
/ðˤ/ | /l/, /z/ | lohor, zohor ('noon prayer') |
/θ/ | /s/ | Selasa ('Tuesday') |
/ɣ/ | /ɡ/, /r/ | ghaib, raib ('hidden') |
/q/ | /k/ | makam ('grave') |
Important in the derivation of Malay verbs and nouns is the assimilation of the nasal consonant at the end of the derivational prefixes meng-/məŋ/, a verbal prefix, and peng-/pəŋ/, a nominal prefix.
The nasal segment is dropped before sonorant consonants (nasals /m,n,ɲ,ŋ/, liquids /l,r/, and approximants /w,j/). It is retained before and assimilates to obstruent consonants: labial /m/ before labial /p,b/, alveolar /n/ before alveolar /t,d/, post-alveolar /ɲ/ before /tʃ,dʒ/ and /s/, velar /ŋ/ before other sounds (velar /k,ɡ/, glottal /h/, all vowels). [11]
In addition, following voiceless obstruents, apart from /tʃ/ (that is /p,t,s,k/), are dropped, except when before causative prefix per- where the first consonant is kept. This phoneme loss rule was mnemonically named kaidah KPST "KPST rule" in Indonesian. [12]
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It is usually said that there are six vowels in Standard Malay [2] [13] (Malaysian and Brunei) and Indonesian. [4] These six vowels are shown in the table below. However, other analyses set up a system with other vowels, particularly the open-mid vowels /ɛ/ and /ɔ/. [14]
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i | u | |
Mid | e | ə | o |
Open | a |
Notes
Example | Johor-Riau (Piawai) Pronunciation | Northern Peninsular Pronunciation | Baku & Indonesian Pronunciation | |
---|---|---|---|---|
⟨a⟩ in final open syllable | ⟨kereta⟩ | /ə/ | /a/ | /a/ |
⟨i⟩ in final closed syllable with final ⟨n⟩ and ⟨ng⟩ | ⟨salin⟩ | /e/ | /i/ | /i/ |
⟨i⟩ in final closed syllable with other final consonants | ⟨itik⟩ | /e/ | /e/ | /i/ |
⟨u⟩ in final closed syllable with final ⟨n⟩ and ⟨ng⟩ | ⟨agung⟩ | /o/ | /u/ | /u/ |
⟨u⟩ in final closed syllable with other final consonants | ⟨lumpur⟩ | /o/ | /o/ | /u/ |
Some analyses claim that Malay has three native diphthong phonemes only in open syllables; they are:
Others assume that these "diphthongs" are actually a monophthong followed by an approximant, so ⟨ai⟩ represents /aj/, ⟨au⟩ represents /aw/, and ⟨oi⟩ represents /oj/. On this basis, there are no phonological diphthongs in Malay. [18]
Words borrowed from Dutch or English with /eɪ/, such as Mei ('May') from Dutch and survei ('survey') from English, are pronounced with /e/ as this feature also happens to English /oʊ/ which becomes /o/. However, Indonesian introduced forth diphthong of /ei̯/ since 2015, such as in ⟨Méi⟩ ('May') /mei̯/.
Diphthongs are differentiated from two vowels in two syllables, such as:
Two vowels that could form a diphthong are actually pronounced separately:
Even if it is not differentiated in modern Latin spelling, diphthongs and two vowels are differentiated in the spelling in Jawi, where a vowel hiatus is indicated by the symbol hamzah ⟨ء⟩, for example: لاءوت laut ('sea').
Malay has light stress that falls on either the final or penultimate syllable, depending on regional variations as well as the presence of the schwa (/ə/) in a word. It is generally the penultimate syllable that is stressed, unless its vowel is a schwa /ə/. If the penult has a schwa, then stress moves to the ante-penultimate syllable if there is one, even if that syllable has a schwa as well; if the word is disyllabic, the stress is final. In disyllabic words with a closed penultimate syllable, such as tinggal ('stay') and rantai ('chain'), stress falls on the penult.
However, there is some disagreement among linguists over whether stress is phonemic (unpredictable), with some analyses suggesting that there is no underlying stress in Malay. [2] [19] [20]
The classification of languages based on rhythm can be problematic. [21] Nevertheless, acoustic measurements suggest that Malay has more syllable-based rhythm than British English, [22] even though doubts remain about whether the syllable is the appropriate unit for the study of Malay prosody. [19]
Most of the native lexicon is based on disyllabic root morphemes, with a small percentage of monosyllabic and trisyllabic roots. [23] However, with the widespread occurrence of prefixes and suffixes, many words of five or more syllables are found. [2]
Syllables are basically consonant–vowel–consonant (CVC), where the V is a monophthong and the final C may be an approximant, either /w/ or /j/. (See the discussion of diphthongs above.)
The Baku standard started being implemented in Malaysia in the year 1988, but this ceased in 2000. The Malaysian Minister of Education had been quoted saying that the Baku standard "is different from the pronunciation commonly used by the people of this country". Singapore started using the Baku standard for official purposes in 1990. Ever since then, there have been various protests from Malay Singaporeans, calling for the return of the Johor-Riau standard as the official standard for Malay pronunciation. One prominent critic of the use of the Baku standard is Berita Harian editor, Guntor Sadali, who noted that "members of the Malay community generally find that Sebutan Baku (Baku Pronunciation) is very awkward". [1]
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