Malay - Indonesian

[Sahaxvhian]

I have been wondering for a while now, but haven't found the answer. How similar are Malay and Indonesian? Are they mutually intelligible?


Thanks in advance!

[ikanbilis]

Sahaxvhian,

As a Malaysian, I have no problem communicating with Indonesians as long as we use standard Malay language. Of course there are some differences between the Malay language of Malaysia and Indonesia but the gap is not wide.

If you are having standard Malay in mind, that should answer your question. Malay dialect,though, is another issue.

Hopefully that helps.

Salam from Malaysia

[emenai]

I second what ikanbilis said. IMHO, if both Indonesian and Malaysian speak using their own standard BAHASA of each country, I would say we can understand each other at a level of 90% or maybe even more.

[smamat]

Hei du som snakker norsk (och svenska till och med)!

I think the differences between Malay and Indonesian are in some aspects comparable to that of Swedish and Norwegian:

1. almost identical grammar
2. the pronounciations are different somewhat. e.g. ape = apa (cf snakke = snacka)
3. nearly same vocabulary, in fact someone who uses Indonesian words in Malay writing is considered somewhat knowledgeable and fluent
4. spoken varieties are harder to understand (cf. Finnmark Norwegian vs. Skåne Swedish)

etc.

There's some more subtle differences. I know Malay, Indonesian and Swedish pretty well, but not Norwegian. I have a slight academic interest in the comparative studies of Norwegian-Sweden and Malay-Indonesian. I've not done anything serious though.

Saif.

[0stsee]

Hej!

I just would like to remind you that Indonesian and Malaysian have practically the same spelling, whereas Norwegian and Swedish are "separated" by their spellings.

Salam

[smamat]

I just would like to remind you that Indonesian and Malaysian have practically the same spelling, whereas Norwegian and Swedish are "separated" by their spellings.

Ostsee... så bra anmärkning!!

Still we can draw a parallel between the pairs... before the relatively recent change in the Indonesian spelling system, we were also separated by our spellings, very much like Norwegian and Swedish (va?)

Of course it's not strictly fair to compare Malay/Indonesian with Norwegian/Swedish... I just can't help noticing the apparent similarities. I guess not many people have talked about this, well not on the Internet at least.

Jag tror att vi kan komma överens om dessa.

Most Malay would compare Malay/Indonesian with British/American English (or perhaps Dutch/Flemish) but since I've found a slightly better comparison (or so I believe), I'm in favour of my own observations in the Norwegian-Swedish connections.

[IsolatedSheep]

Hei du som snakker norsk (och svenska till och med)!

I think the differences between Malay and Indonesian are in some aspects comparable to that of Swedish and Norwegian:

1. almost identical grammar
2. the pronounciations are different somewhat. e.g. ape = apa (cf snakke = snacka)
3. nearly same vocabulary, in fact someone who uses Indonesian words in Malay writing is considered somewhat knowledgeable and fluent
4. spoken varieties are harder to understand (cf. Finnmark Norwegian vs. Skåne Swedish)

etc.

There's some more subtle differences. I know Malay, Indonesian and Swedish pretty well, but not Norwegian. I have a slight academic interest in the comparative studies of Norwegian-Sweden and Malay-Indonesian. I've not done anything serious though.

Saif.

That's not correct. The "ape" pronunciation is not the standard pronunciation. The standard is the same as Indonesian, "apa". The different between both language is rather small. Only some words have differ in meanings. But, the most obvious different is the "perbendaharaan kata" for western words (not sure what is it in English) orientation. Indonesian language, Dutch while Malay (Malaysia) from English. Due to the idea of distinguishing both language via the pronunciation, some who speak "baku" got to be called (or at least been thought as) Indonesian. I found this stupid. The baku pronunciation is the real Malay, and it's more beautiful.

[0stsee]

Most Malay would compare Malay/Indonesian with British/American English (or perhaps Dutch/Flemish) but since I've found a slightly better comparison (or so I believe), I'm in favour of my own observations in the Norwegian-Swedish connections.

Well, knowing both Swedish and Norwegian, I do have to say that Bahasa Indonèsia and Bahasa Malaysia are much more similar to each other than Bahasa Swèdia and Bahasa Norwègia. At least the standard forms. They are really almost identical.

IMHO, if both Indonesian and Malaysian speak using their own standard BAHASA of each country, I would say we can understand each other at a level of 90% or maybe even more.

I tried this a couple of times, and both me and my Malaysian locutor agreed that we understood each other at about 97%.