The Phonology of Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia)

Hello, Nexers! Welcome to my page! 

Do you know about Indonesian or Bahasa Indonesia? Indonesian is an official and national language of Indonesia. It is a standardised variety of Malay (Bahasa Melayu), an Austronesian language that has been used as a lingua franca in the archipelago for centuries. Indonesian also used in Timor-Leste as a working language and a trade language with Indonesia. In this article, I want to show you about the phonology of Indonesian (Indonesian: Fonologi Bahasa Indonesia).

1. Consonants

Indonesian language has 19 native consonants (plus 6 non-native consonants). They are:

		Labial	Dental/Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ	-
Plosive/Affricate	Voiceless	p	t	tʃ	k	ʔ
	Voiced	b	d	dʒ	g	-
Fricative	Voiceless	f	s	ʃ	x	h
	Voiced	v	z	-	γ	-
Approximant		w	l	j	-	-
Trill		-	r	-	-	-

Non-native consonants (are shown in Bold and Italic) only occur in loanwords, principally from Arabic, English, Dutch, etc.  Some of Indonesian speakers pronounce v as /f/, otherwise as /p/ or rarely /v/. Likewise, the /x/ sound may be replaced as /h/ or /k/ by some speakers. The /ʃ/ sound may be replaced as /s/, the /z/ sound may be replaced as /s/ or /dʒ/, and the /f/ sound may be replaced as /p/. 

Latin alphabet is used in standard Indonesian orthography, and the sounds are represented orthographically by their symbols as above, except:

- /ʔ/ is written as a final 'k' (sometimes it can be a homophone of /k/), an apostrophe, or it can be unwritten.

- /j/ is written as 'y'.

- /tʃ/ is written as 'c'.

- /dʒ/ is written as 'j'.

- /ɲ/ is written as 'ny'.

- /ŋ/ is written as 'ng'.

- /x/ is written as 'kh'.

- /ʃ/ is written as 'sy'.

-/γ/ is written as 'gh' (some of Indonesian speakers pronounce 'gh' as /g/).

2. Vowels and Diphthongs

Indonesian has 6 vowel phonemes. They are:

	Front	Central	Back
Close	/i/		/u/
Mid	/e/	/ə/	/o/
Open		/a/

Five vowels are distinguished in standard Indonesian orthography: a, i, u, e, o. In materials for learners, the /e/ sound is sometimes represented with a diacritic as 'é' to distinguish it from /ə/ sound. Since 2015, the auxiliary graphemes 'é' and 'è' are used respectively for phonetic [e] and [ɛ] in Indonesian, while Standard Malay (Bahasa Melayu Standard) has rendered both of them as 'é'. 

Indonesian also has four diphthong phonemes only in open syllables. They are:

- /ai/: petai /pə.tai/ ('bitter bean'), pandai /pan.dai/ ('clever'), kedai /kə.dai/ ('shop')

- /au/: kalau /ka.lau/ ('if'), kerbau /kər.bau/('buffalo') 

- /oi/: toilet /toi.let/ ('toilet'), amboi /am.boi/ ('wow')

- /ei/: mei /mei/ ('month of May'), survei /sur.vei/ ('survey')

Dipthongs are differentiated from two vowels in two syllables, such as:

- /a.i/ e.g. syair ('poem') [ʃa.ir], lain ('other') [la.in], main ('play') [ma.in]

- /a.u/ e.g. mau ('want') [ma.u], bau ('smell') [ba.u], baut ('bolt') [ba.ut]

The phonology of Indonesian is more simpler and its orthography is more understandable than English. Indonesian also used Latin alphabet and it make the language more easier to learn. I hope this article helped you understand the phonology of Indonesian.

Thanks and see ya!

Writer:

Ivan Genta Surya Eksa