Malay phonology is based on the pronunciation of several standard varieties of the pluricentric language of Malay as used officially as Standard Malay in Brunei, Malaysia, and Singapore, and as Indonesian in Indonesia and Timor-Leste.
There are two main varieties of standard Malay pronunciation, -varieties () where word-final as in the word 'to open' is pronounced as and word-final as in the word 'patient' is not silent, and schwa-varieties (; also called 'Johor-Riau pronunciation' owing to its origins) where word-final is pronounced as schwa and word-final is silent except when a vowel-initial suffix is attached. This means and would be pronounced as and in -varieties, but as and in schwa-varieties.
-varieties are spoken in Brunei, East Malaysia, Indonesia, and northwestern Peninsular Malaysia (Kedah, Penang, Perlis), while schwa-varieties are spoken in the other parts of Peninsular Malaysia, including the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur and in Singapore. Schwa-varieties predominate in the Malaysian media, while a separate artificial (lit. 'standard' in Malay/Indonesian; also called 'Literary Standard Malay') pronunciation standard which follows a prescriptive 'pronounce as spelt' approach to pronunciation is officially used and enforced in Singapore. The pronunciation standard is distinct from -varieties but aligns with them in how word-final and are treated.
Consonants The consonants of Standard Bruneian Malay, Malaysian Malay and Indonesian 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 .
+ Consonant phonemes of Standard Malay and Indonesian Labial Dental Denti-alv./Alveolar Post-alv./Palatal VelarUvular Glottal Nasal Plosive/Affricate ()() Fricative () () () () () () () () Approximant Trill
Orthographic note: The sounds are represented orthographically by their symbols as above, except:
is written as before a vowel and as before and . is written as . is written as syllable-final or an apostrophe . is written as . Before 1972, this sound was written as in Standard Malay and as in Indonesian. is written as . Before 1972, this sound was written as in Indonesian. is written as . Before 1972, this sound was written as in Indonesian. is written as . Before 1972, this sound was written as in Standard Malay and as in Indonesian. is written as . Before 1972, this sound was written as ⟨ch⟩ in Indonesian. is written as . This digraph corresponds to in Indonesian. is written as or . is written as . Before 1972, this sound was written as or in Standard Malay. is written . Before 1972, this sound was written as or in Standard Malay.
Notes , , are unaspirated, as in the Romance languages, or as in English spy, sty, sky. In syllable codas, they are usually unreleased, with final generally being realised as a glottal stop in native words in Malaysian Malay but as velar or uvular stops in Bruneian Standard Malay. There is generally no liaison, that is, no audible release even when followed by a vowel in another word, as in kulit ubi 'tapioca skins' , though they are pronounced as a normal medial consonant when followed by a suffix. // is dental or supradental [] in most varieties of Malay and in Indonesian, but not in Brunei Malay where it is alveolar. At prefix-stem boundaries, when the prefix ends in a vowel (e.g. and ) and the stem word starts with a vowel, a glottal stop is epenthesized as a way of avoiding vowel hiatus, so a word like 'to be lifted' (< + 'to lift') would be pronounced as . At stem-suffix boundaries: When the stem ends in and a vowel-initial suffix is added, a homorganic glide, respectively is epenthesized between the stem and the suffix. If the stem instead ends in , a glottal stop is inserted. This means 'complaint' (< 'to send a complaint' + ) and 'a stop' (< 'to stop' + ) would be pronounced as and with the epenthesized and , while 'attempt' (< 'to try' + ) would be pronounced as with the epenthesized . This applies to when the stem ends in the diphthongs as well so a word like 'clothes' (< 'to wear' + ) is pronounced as . When the stem ends in any consonant with the exception of (and also according to some) and a vowel-initial suffix is added, according to Tajul (2000) and Suraiya (2021), the consonant is geminated. This results in 'option' (< 'choose' + ) being pronounced as . When the stem ends in as in 'action' (< 'act' + ), the is phonologically geminated resulting in /tindakkan/, but as in the syllable coda is pronounced as a glottal stop , phonetically, there is no geminate in the derived term, with the word being pronounced as . The glottal stop may be represented by an apostrophe in Arabic-derived words such as Al Qur'an. In some words like 'to be lifted' that are derived from vowel-initial words with a vowel-ending prefix, the glottal stop is not reflected in writing. For some speakers, is only pronounced clearly between like vowels, as in 'tree branch'. For these types of speakers, elsewhere, it is a very light sound, and is frequently silent, as in ~ 'forest', ~ 'answer', ~ 'beautiful'. The exception to this tendency is initial from Arabic loans such as 'judge'. varies significantly across dialects. In addition, its position relative to schwa is ambiguous: kertas 'paper' may be pronounced or . The trill is sometimes reduced to a single vibration when single, making it phonetically a flap , so that the pronunciation of a single varies between trill , flap and, in some instances, approximant [ɹ], possibly as a result of English influence in Malaysia and Singapore. In word-final position, is audible in -varieties and in the pronunciation standard, but silent in schwa-varieties. In schwa-varieties, word-final is pronounced when a vowel-initial suffix is attached so while (to challenge) may be pronounced as with the silent, when the suffix is added to get 'challenge', the word is pronounced with the not silent. This has led some analyses to refer to the silent word-final as a 'floating ' which requires that the pronunciation of in schwa-varieties be phonemically transcribed as rather than as to indicate the presence of the floating . This floating is also found in the prefixes and . Due to the influence of pronunciation and spelling, in schwa-varieties, word-final may be pronounced even in situations where it usually isn't. This can be heard, for instance, in the schwa-variety speech of some RTM broadcasters. Voiced stops do not occur in final position in native words. In loanwords, and are generally devoiced in final position (sebab 'cause' , masjid 'mosque' ) to conform with the native phonological structure. Some pronunciation guides consider this devoicing nonstandard and prescribe to pronounce final b and d as written, i.e. voiced. , , , , , and only appear in loanwords. Some speakers pronounce in loanwords as , otherwise it is . can also be an allophone of before voiced consonants, although this is rare. Since and are written identically in Malay, as with and and and , , and tend to only occur in speakers who speak the source languages the words are borrowed from (e.g. Arabic and English) and are aware of the original pronunciations of the words. The affricates are variously described as post-alveolar / or alveolo-palatal /. Some varieties are described with palatal /. Hoogervorst (2017) argues that initial and did not exist in Old Malay and were respectively substituted with and until the instilling of learning Arabic through eventual spread Islamic education amongst local populations.
Loans from Arabic: Phonemes which occur only in Arabic loans may be pronounced distinctly by speakers who know Arabic, otherwise they tend to be substituted with native sounds.
+ Table of borrowed Arabic consonants Distinct Assimilated Example 'Tuesday' 'permission' , 'noon prayer', 'willing' , , 'news' (Indonesian) 'dialect' (compare Malay ) 'grave' 'judge' 'second'
Nasal assimilation Important in the derivation of Malay verbs and nouns is the assimilation of the nasal consonant at the end of the derivational prefixes meng- , a verbal prefix, and peng- , a nominal prefix.
The nasal segment is dropped before sonorant consonants (nasals , liquids , and approximants ). It is retained before and assimilates to obstruent consonants: labial before labial , alveolar before alveolar , post-alveolar before and , velar before other sounds (velar , glottal , all vowels).
In addition, following voiceless obstruents, apart from (that is ), are dropped, except when before causative prefix where the first consonant is kept. This 'phoneme loss rule' manifests as a consonant mutation, often mnemonically termed as ('KPST principle') in Indonesian.
root meaning meng- derivation meaning peng- derivation meaning masak cook memasak cooking pemasak cook (n) nanti late menanti waiting penanti one who waits layang kite melayang hovering, drifting rampas confiscated merampas snatch perampas confiscator beli buy membeli buying pembeli buyer dukung support mendukung supporting pendukung supporter jawab answer menjawab replying penjawab answerer gulung roll menggulung rolling penggulung roller hantar send menghantar sending penghantar sender ajar teach mengajar teaching pengajar teacher isi volume mengisi filling pengisi filler pilih choose memilih choosing pemilih chooser tulis write menulis writing penulis writer cabut pull out mencabut pulling out pencabut puller kenal notable mengenal knowing (a person) pengenal identifier surat letter menyurat correspond penyurat correspondent
Vowels It is usually said that there are six vowels in Standard MalayAsmah Haji Omar (2008). Ensiklopedia Bahasa Melayu. Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, page 97. and Indonesian. These six vowels are shown in the table below. However, other analyses set up a system with other vowels, particularly the open-mid vowels and .Yunus Maris, M. (1980). The Malay Sound System. Kuala Lumpur: Penerbit Fajar Bakti Sdn. Bhd, page 2.
+ Vowel phonemes of Standard Malay and Indonesian Front Central Back Close Mid Open
Notes As mentioned at the top of the page, one main source of variation in standard Malay pronunciation is in whether final in open final syllables of root morphemes (for example buka 'to open') is pronounced as or as schwa . The former quality is employed by '-varieties', found in Indonesian and those of Brunei, Sabah, Sarawak and northwestern Peninsular Malaysia (Kedah, Penang, Perlis), and the latter is employed by 'schwa-varieties' which is found in all the other parts of Peninsular Malaysia including the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur and partly in Singapore.Asmah Haji Omar. (1977). The phonological diversity of the Malay dialects. Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. In schwa-varieties, of the penultimate syllable is also modified if it is followed by , as in 'effort'. This final difference is neutralized to when a suffix that starts with a vowel is added on, so the word 'act of reading' (< 'to read' + ) is pronounced as in both and schwa-varieties even though the word by itself would be pronounced as in schwa-varieties. In schwa-varieties, as exceptions, final ⟨a⟩ in certain words are still pronounced as . For example, 'ball' and 'million' are pronounced and , not and . Included in words of this type are recent borrowings, such as from English 'chart', and coinages that end with ⟨a⟩, such as 'kindergarten', which is a portmanteau of 'children's education park'.