Introduction

The origin of Bahasa Indonesia is from Riau Malay, used by Indonesian people as a first or second language. Many tribes use their native language. Bahasa Indonesia is Unification Language for Indonesian as a Nation, experienced several times language development become Improved Spelling or “Ejaan Yang Disempurnakan”.

Image Source

Spell Comparison

Bahasa Indonesia uses Latin letters, the same as English or Spanish, but there is a difference about the spell. This is a spelling comparison between English and Indonesia.

English Source
Indonesian Source

The spelling table is very important to understand Bahasa Indonesia. You can see the difference spell between English and Bahasa Indonesia. If you say “horizon” in English it is spelled “ho-RAI-zon, in Bahasa Indonesia, it is spelled “ho-RI-zon”.

Digraph

There is digraph in Bahasa Indonesia

Ng = eng
Ny = nye
Kh = kh
Sy = sy

A digraph is two letters spelled as one voice.

Ng sound is like “KiNG”. For example, “Why” in Indonesia is “Mengapa”, it is spelled “Me-NGA-pa”.

Ny and Kh sound is no match in English, this is not like to spell “Anybody” it is spelled “E-NI-bo-di”. For example, “Sing” in Indonesia is “Bernyanyi” it is spelled “Ber-NYA-NYI”.

Sy sound is not like to speak “busy” be spoken “bi-ZI”. Sy is similar to Sh in “SHarp”. In daily conversation, this Sy becomes S.

For additional information, Kh, and Sy are from the Arabic Language.

This is a Bahasa Indonesia lesson from me. I will post another topic in my next post.

Best Regards.