Malay and Indonesian
When I once tried to learn Malay in order to understand what my Malay Chinese roommates talked about, I did some research on Malay by looking for textbooks for studying Malay. The search results ended up bouncing out the title, “How to self-learn Indonesian and Malay”. This title might seem a little awkward, because most of us see Indonesian and Malay as two different languages. Nevertheless, if we view from the history, the origin of Indonesian is actually from the regional dialect of Malay. Date back to 1928, Indonesian nationalists chose Malay as the national language; after the independence of Indonesia, Bahasa Indonesia, with which replaced the name Malay, has become the national language. Although Indonesian and Malay have the same ancestor, they still differ from each other in terms of the utilization of vocabulary.
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First, Indonesian and Malaysian have the different frequency of word choices respectively. Malaysian and Indonesian may have distinct words for describing the same thing, but it doesn’t mean that they cannot understand each other. Instead, it merely indicates that they have their own familiar words to use. For instance, when it comes to the word “ noon”, a Malaysian would say “tengah hari”, while an Indonesian could express with “siang”. If a person say “Selamat siang” to a Malaysian, the Malaysian would still understand that the man is greeting him. The reason for using dissimilar expressions lies only in the accustomed choice in the daily life in different surroundings, which causes the distinction between these two languages appears.
In addition, the impacts of other foreign languages result in the formation of unique expression of words in Malay and Indonesian. Two different and specific Western countries influence Malay and Indonesian respectively at a huge scale during their colonial era. Indonesia had been colonized by Dutch for about 200 years, whereas the Britain had literally controlled Malaysia since 1824. The impact from the colonial foreign languages drove the distinction between Malay and Indonesian. For instance, in Indonesian, it uses “tas” to describe the word “beg”, which is identical to Dutch; in Malay, it has the same expression “beg”, just like English. Due to the influence of the different colonial languages, Malay and Indonesian have distinct selections of vocabulary.
While Malay and Indonesian own some words spelled exactly the same, the meaning or parts of speech of these words diverse in two languages. As an illustration, in regards of the word ”bila”, a Malaysian use this word for expressing “when”. However, “bila” means “if” in Indonesian. Furthermore, words with the same spelling might even differ not only in the definition but also parts of speech. The word “cakap” is a verb which means to speak in Malay, whereas “cakap” is an adjective to describe something or someone handsome or excellent. Though there are some words having the same spelling term, the description or the categories of speech of them may vary in Malay and Indonesian.
To sum up, Malay and Indonesian have some similarities in the perspective of language, but they have their own particular features in the practice of word choices. Since Malay and Indonesian have been rooted from the same dialect, these two languages have the strong resemblance. Nevertheless, Malay and Indonesia have their special uses of words in some cases, which are the cause of different areas and the result of the distinct colonized backgrounds. Moreover, despite some words with the same spelling, the meaning and parts of speech may differ in these two languages. Malay and Indonesian are similar but different. According to Mary and Kira (2004), a language actually demonstrates the identity of one group of people. Therefore, for showing respect to people from foreign countries, it is important for us to understand the differences among languages. There might be some identical sentence structure in both Malay and Indonesian, but they are actually distinct when we examine these two languages carefully.
References:
1. Mary B. and Kira H. Language and Identity. (2004) Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227992133_Language_and_Identity
Bibliography:
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kAbNdot4e0
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Pictures:
Pic 1. Retrieved from http://www.geocurrents.info/cultural-geography/mapping-religion-in-indonesia
Pic 2. Retrieved from https://www.mixerdirect.com/blogs/mixer-direct-blog/the-rise-of-biodiesel-in-malaysia-and-indonesia