Malay language Totally Explained

Orthographic Notes:

The k at the end of a word in native Malay words is pronounced as a glottal stop.
The combination of [ŋg] is represented as ngg.
The letter x is variously pronounced as [ks], [s] or [z].

Table of vowel phonemes of Malay>

Height	Front	Central	Back
Close	i [i]		u [u]
Mid	e [e,ɛ]	e [ə]	o [o,ɔ]
Open		a [a]	a [ɑ]

Table diphthongs of Malay>

Orthography	IPA
ai	[aɪ̯,ai]
au	[aʊ̯,au]
ua	[ua]

There are two vowels represented by the letter "e", for example [e,ɛ] and [ə]. Learners of Malay are expected to distinguish between the two sounds while learning each new word. (Before the joint spelling reform of 1972 between Malaysia and Indonesia, the two nations marked the difference in vowels. For unknown reasons, it was decided to drop the marking when the spellings were united.)
In some parts of Peninsular Malaysia, especially in the central and southern region, most words which end with the letter a tends to be pronounced as [ə].

Grammar

Word Formation

Malay is an agglutinative language, and new words are formed via three methods. New words can be created by attaching affixes onto a root word (affixation), formation of a compound word (composition), or repetition of words or portions of words (reduplication).

Affixes

Root words are either nouns or verbs, which can be affixed to derive new words, for example masak (to cook) yields memasak (cooks, is cooking, etc.), memasakkan (cooks, is cooking for etc.), dimasak (cooked - passive) as well as pemasak (cook - person), masakan (cooking, cookery). Many initial consonants undergo mutation when prefixes are added: for example sapu (sweep) becomes penyapu (broom); panggil (to call) becomes memanggil (calls, is calling, etc.), tapis (sieve) becomes menapis (sieves, is sieving, etc.)
Other examples of the use of affixes to change the meaning of a word can be seen with the word ajar (teach):

ajar = teach

ajaran = teachings

belajar = is studying

mengajar = to teach

diajar = (something) is being taught

diajarkan = (someone) is being taught (something)

mempelajari = to study (something)

dipelajari = is being studied

pelajar = student

pengajar = teacher

pelajaran = subject

pengajaran = lesson, moral of story

pembelajaran = learning

terajar = taught

terpelajar = well-educated

berpelajaran = is educated There are four types of affixes, namely prefixes (awalan), suffixes (akhiran), circumfixes (apitan) and infixes (sisipan). These affixes are categorized into noun affixes, verb affixes, and adjective affixes. Noun affixes are affixes that form nouns upon addition to root words. The following are examples of noun affixes:

Type of noun affixes	Affix	Example of root word	Example of derived word
Prefix	pe(N)-	duduk (sit)	penduduk (population)
	ke-	hendak (want)	kehendak (desire)
	juru-	acara (event)	juruacara (event host)
Infix	-el-	tunjuk (point)	telunjuk (index finger, command)
	-em-	kelut (dishevelled)	kemelut (chaos, crisis)
	-er-	gigi (teeth)	gerigi (toothed blade)
Suffix	-an	bangun (wake up, raise)	bangunan (building)
Circumfix	ke-...-an	raja (king)	kerajaan (government, kingdom)
	pe(N)-...-an	kerja (work)	pekerjaan (occupation)

(N) and (R) indicate that if a word begins with certain letters (most often vowels or consonants k, p, s, t), the letter will either be omitted or other letters will replace it, most commonly with the letters in the bracket or m, ng, ny and l.
Similarly, verb affixes are attached to root words to form verbs. In Malay, there are:

Type of verb affixes	Affix	Example of root word	Example of derived word
Prefix	be(R)-	ajar (teach)	belajar (to study) - Intransitive
	me(N)-	tolong (help)	menolong (to help) - Active transitive
	di-	ambil (take)	diambil (is being taken) - Passive transitive
	mempe(R)-	kemas (tidy up, orderly)	memperkemas (to arrange further)
	dipe(R)-	dalam (deep)	diperdalam (is being further deepen)
	te(R)-	makan (eat)	termakan (to have accidentally eaten)
Suffix	-kan	letak (place, keep)	letakkan (keep) - Imperative transitive
	-i	jauh (far)	jauhi (avoid) - Imperative transitive
Circumfix	be(R)-...-an	pasang (pair)	berpasangan (to be paired)
	be(R)-...-kan	tajuk (title)	bertajukkan (to be titled, to entitle)
	me(N)-...-kan	pasti (certain)	memastikan (to ensure)
	me(N)-...-i	teman (companion)	menemani (to accompany)
	mempe(R)-...-kan	guna (use)	mempergunakan (to misuse, to utilise)
	mempe(R)-...-i	ajar (teach)	mempelajari (to study)
	ke-...-an	hilang (disappear)	kehilangan (to lose)
	di-...-i	sakit (pain)	disakiti (is being hurt)
	di-...-kan	benar (right)	dibenarkan (is allowed to)
	dipe(R)-...-kan	kenal (know, recognise)	diperkenalkan (is being introduced)

Adjective affixes are attached to root words to form adjectives:

Type of adjective affixes	Affix	Example of root word	Example of derived word
Prefix	te(R)-	kenal (know)	terkenal (famous)
	se-	bijak (clever)	sebijak (as clever as)
Infix	-el-	serak (disperse)	selerak (messy)
	-em-	cerlang (radiant bright)	cemerlang (bright, excellent)
	-er-	sabut (husk)	serabut (dishevelled)
Circumfix	ke-...-an	barat (west)	kebaratan (westernized)

In addition to these affixes, Malay language also has a lot of borrowed affixes from other languages such as Sanskrit, Arabic and English. For example maha-, pasca-, eka-, bi-, anti-, pro- etc.

Compound word

In Malay, new words can be formed by joining two or more root words. Compound words, when exist freely in a sentence, are often written separately. Compound words are only attached to each other when they're bound by circumfix or when they're already considered as stable words.
For example, the word kereta which means car and api which means fire, are compounded to form a new word kereta api (train). Similarly, ambil alih (take over) is formed using the root words ambil (take) and alih (move), but will link together when a circumfix is attached to it, for example pengambilalihan (takeover). Certain stable words, such as kakitangan (personel), and kerjasama (cooperation), are spelled as one word even when they exist freely in sentences.

Reduplication

There are four types of words reduplication in Malay, namely

Full reduplication

Partial reduplication

Rhythmic reduplication

Reduplication of meaning

Measure words

Another distinguishing feature of Malay is its use of measure words (penjodoh bilangan). In this way, it's similar to many other languages of Asia, including Chinese, Vietnamese, Burmese, and Bengali.

Part of Speech

In Malay, there are 4 parts of speech:

Nouns

Verbs

Adjectives

Function words

There are 16 types of function words in Malay which performs a grammatical function in a sentence. Amongst these are conjunctions, interjections, prepositions, negations and determiners.

Negations

There are two negation words in Malay, that's bukan and tidak. Bukan is used to negate noun phrases and preposition in a predicate, whereas tidak is used to negate verbs and adjective phrases in a predicate.

Subject	Negation	Predicate
Lelaki yang berjalan dengan Fazila itu (That boy who is walking with Fazila)	bukan (is not)	teman lelakinya (her boyfriend)
Surat itu (The letter)	bukan (is not)	daripada teman penanya di Perancis (from his penpal in France)
Pelajar-pelajar itu (Those students)	tidak (do not)	mengikuti peraturan sekolah (obey school regulations)
Penguasaan Bahasa Melayunya (His command of Malay language)	tidak (is not)	sempurna (perfect)

The negative word bukan however, can be used before verb phrases and adjective phrases if the sentence shows contradictions.

Subject	Negation	Predicate	Contradiction
Karangannya (His composition)	bukan (is not)	sangat baik, (very good,)	tetapi dia mendapat markah baik (but he received good marks)

Grammatical gender

Malay doesn't make use of grammatical gender, and there are only a few words that use natural gender; the same word is used for he and she or for his and her. Most of the words that refer to people (family terms, professions, etc.) have a form that doesn't distinguish between the sexes. For example, adik can both refer to a younger sibling of either gender. In order to specify the natural gender of a noun, an adjective has to be added: adik lelaki corresponds to "brother" but really means "male younger sibling". There are some words that are gendered, for instance puteri means "princess", and putera means "prince"; words like these are usually absorbed from other languages (in these cases, from Sanskrit).

Pluralisation

Plurals are often expressed by means of reduplication, but only when the plural isn't implied in the context. For example, "cup", which is 'cawan', would be 'cawan-cawan'. This can be shortened to 'cecawan', but this only applies to a list of words.
There are exceptions to this rule. Although "person" is orang, "people" isn't orang-orang, but normally 'ramai orang' (literal translation: many persons). "One thousand people" is seribu orang, as the numeral makes it unnecessary to mark the plural form. Besides expressing plurals, reduplication can also be used to create new words that differ in meaning before reduplication takes place, for instance hati means "heart" or "liver" (depending on context) whereas hati-hati means "to be careful" and it's often used as a verb. For foreigners who are learning Malay, reduplication isn't as easy as it seems to be because one can say orang ("person") or orang-orang ("scarecrow"). Some write duplicates with a "2", for example orang2 for orang-orang.

Verbs

Verbs are not inflected for person or number, and they're not marked for tense; tense is instead denoted by time adverbs (such as "yesterday") or by other tense indicators, such as sudah, "already". On the other hand, there's a complex system of verb affixes to render nuances of meaning and denote active and passive voices. Some of these affixes are ignored in daily conversations.

Word order

The basic word order is Subject Verb Object. Adjectives, demonstrative pronouns and possessive pronouns follow the noun they describe.

Adopted words

The Malay language has many words adopted from Arabic (mainly religious terms), Hindi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Persian, Portuguese, Dutch, certain Chinese dialects and more recently, English (in particular many scientific and technological terms). Some examples follow:

aksi - action (from Dutch actie)

almari - cupboard (from Portuguese armário)

anggur - grape (from Persian انگور/angur)

bahasa - language (from Sanskrit bhāshā)

bandar - town (from Persian بندر/bandr)

bas - bus (from English)

bangku - stool (from Portuguese banco)

bendera - flag (from Portuguese bandeira)

bihun - rice vermicelli (from Hokkien bi-hun)

biola - violin (from Portuguese viola)

biskut - biscuit (from English)

bomba - fire brigade (from Portuguese bomba, "pump", or bombeiro, "fireman", lit. "pumper")

boneka - doll (from Portuguese boneca)

buat - do (from Sanskrit wuat)

buku - book (from Dutch boek)

bumi - earth (from Sanskrit bhumi)

cawan - cup (from Mandarin cháwǎn)

dakwah - sermon (from Arabic da3wah)

dewan - hall (from Persian دیوان/diwan)

duka - sadness (from Sanskrit duhkha)

dunia - world (from Arabic dunyā)

ekspress - express (from English)

falsafah - philosophy (from Arabic falsafah)

gandum - wheat (from Persian گندم/gandm)

garfu - fork (from Portuguese garfo)

gereja - church (from Portuguese igreja)

gratis - for free (from Portuguese)

guru - teacher (from Sanskrit)

had - limit (from Arabic hadd)

huruf - word character/letter (from Arabic urūf)

ini - this (from Persian این)

jawab - to answer (from Arabic jawāb)

jendela - window (from Portuguese janela)

Khamis - Thursday (Arabic al-khamis)

kamus - dictionary (from Arabic qāmūs)

kapal - ship (from Tamil கப்பல்/kappal)

katil - bed (from Tamil கட்டில்/kattil)

kaunter - counter or desk (from English)

keju - cheese (from Portuguese queijo)

kemeja - shirt (from Portuguese camisa)

kepala - head (from Sanskrit kapala "skull")

kereta - carriage, car (from Portuguese carreta)

komputer - computer (from English)

kongsi - share (from Hokkien 公司/kong-si)

kuda - horse (from Hindi kudh)

kuil - temple (from Tamil கோவில்/kovil)

kurma - date (from Persian خرما/Khurma)

lif - lift, elevator (from English))

limau - lemon/orange (from Portuguese limão "lemon")

lori - lorry, truck (from English)

maaf - sorry (from Urdu māf "forgiveness")/(from Arabic Mafu)

maha - great (from Sanskrit)

makmal - laboratory Arabic

mangga - mango (from Portuguese manga)

manusia - human being (from Sanskrit manuya)

mentega - butter (from Portuguese manteiga)

mee/mi - noodles (from Hokkien miᴺ)

meja - table (from Portuguese mesa)

misai - moustache (from Tamil மீசை/meesai)

miskin - poor (from Arabic miskiin)

muflis - bankrupt (from Arabic muflis)

nujum - astrologer (from Arabic al-nujum)

nanas/nenas - pineapple (from Portuguese or Arabic ananás)

paderi - priest (Christian) (from Portuguese padre)

pau - bun (from Hokkien 包/pau)

pesta - party (from Portuguese festa)

pita - tape (from Portuguese fita)

putera - prince (from Sanskrit putra "son")

raja - king (from Sanskrit rāja)

roda - wheel (from Portuguese roda)

roti - bread (from Sanskrit roi)

sabun - soap (from Arabic) sàbuun

sains - science (from English)

- same (from Sanskrit)

sama-sama - together (derived from sama via reduplication)

sekolah - school (from Portuguese escola)

sengsara - suffering (from Sanskrit sasara)

sepatu - shoe (from Portuguese sapato)

soldadu - soldier (from Portuguese soldado)

syariah - Islamic law (from Arabic shāri`ah)

syurga - Heaven (from Tamil சொர்கம்/sorgam)

syukur - thankful (from Arabic shukr)

singahsana - location (from Sanskrit singahsanam)

sistem - system (from English)

suka - happiness (from Sanskrit sukha)

tangki - tank (from Portuguese tanque)

tauhu - beancurd (from Hokkien tao-hu)

tarikh - date (from Arabic tārīkh)

teh - tea (from Hokkien tɛ)

teko - teapot (from Hokkien tɛ-ko)

televisyen - television (from English)

tuala - towel (from Portuguese toalha)

tukar - to exchange (from Portuguese trocar)

Agama - Religion (from Sanskrit agama)

unta - camel (from Urdu ūnṭ)

utara - north (from Sanskrit uttara)

warna - colour (from Sanskrit varnam)

waktu - time (from Arabic waqt)

wira - hero (from Tamil வீரா/veera)

zirafah - giraffe (from Arabic zirāfah) Some Malay words have been borrowed into English. See the at Wiktionary, the free dictionary and Wikipedia's sister project.
Malay language has also heavily influenced the forms of colloquial English spoken in Malaysia (Manglish).

Some simple phrases in Malay

In Malaysia, to greet somebody with "Selamat pagi" or "Selamat sejahtera" would be considered very formal, and the borrowed word "Hi" would be more usually among friends; similarly "Bye-bye" is often used when taking one's leave. I hate you>

Malay Phrase	IPA	English Translation
Selamat datang	/səlamat dataŋ/	Welcome
Selamat jalan	/səlamat dʒalan/	Have a safe journey (equivalent to "goodbye", used by the party staying)
Selamat tinggal	/səlamat tiŋgal/	Goodbye (Somewhat equivalent to "stay safe", used by the party leaving)
Terima kasih	/tərima kaseh/	Thank you
Sama-sama	/sama sama/	You are welcome (as in a response to Thank You)
Selamat pagi	/səlamat pagi/	Good morning
Selamat petang	/səlamat pətaŋ/	Good afternoon/evening (note that 'Selamat petang' must not be used at night as in English. For a general greeting, use 'Selamat sejahtera')
Selamat sejahtera	/səlamat sədʒahtəra/	Greetings (formal)
Selamat malam	/səlamat malam/	Good night (Use when ending a meet during the night. To greet someone at night, use 'Selamat Sejahtera')
Jumpa lagi		See you again
Siapakah nama anda?/Nama awak apa?		What is your name?
Nama saya ...		My name is ... (The relevant name is placed in front. For example, if your name was Jessha, then you'd introduce yourself by saying "Nama saya Jessha", which translates to "My name is Jessha")
Apa khabar?		How are you? / What's up? (literally, "What news?")
Khabar baik		Fine, good
Saya sakit		I am ill
Ya	/ja/	Yes
Tidak ("tak" colloquially)		No
Saya sayang padamu		I love you (In a more of a family or affectionate sort of love, for example: mother to daughter)
Saya cinta awak (/padamu)		I love you (romantic love)
Saya tidak faham (or simply "tak faham" colloquially)		I don't understand
Saya tidak tahu (or "tak tau" colloquially. Some say "sik tau")		I don't know
(Minta) maaf		Sorry or Excuse Me ('minta' is to request. Begin with 'Minta Maaf' when trying to talk to strangers)
Tumpang tanya		"May I ask...?" (used when trying to ask something)
(Minta) tolong		Please help (me) ('Tolong!' on its own just means "help!")
Apa		"what?"
Tiada		"Nothing"

Usage among the younger generation

While sending SMS messages on their mobile phones, or being logged into Internet chat rooms, Malay-speaking youths tend to abbreviate their words to save message space or simply be quick in sending their messages, for example x - tak, tidak (no; not); bkn - bukan (not); bleh - boleh (can, for example able to). They even alter the spellings of certain full words, for example ko - (eng)kau (you); ye - ya (yes). They even merge two words into a new one in place of a word of the same meaning in formal Malay, for example diorang (dia and orang).
There is a new set of slang spoken by the urban youth, which may not be familiar to the older generation, for example awek (girl); balak (guy); usha (survey); skodeng (peep); cun (pretty); poyo/slenge (horrible, low-quality) etc. The youth also tend to mix Malay with English words, forming Bahasa Rojak. Example of this pidgin is: Bestlah tempat ni (This place is cool);kau ni terror lah (How daring you are; you're amazing). This issue has raised the displeasure of language purists in Malaysia, in their effort to uphold the proper use of the national language.

Dictionary

There are many different Malay dictionaries. In Malaysia, the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP) dictionary is the chief arbiter for the language, and is considered the authority in defining Malay usage. Some other dictionaries are:

Kamus Dewan

Kamus Pelajar

Kamus Oxford

Kamus Besar

External results

Click here for more details on Malay Language

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