Entry 7: It’s Not Sejuk, It’s Dingin!

Many people say that Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian) and Bahasa Melayu (Malaysian) are the same. Even foreigners have a hard time distinguishing between the two. Indeed, both languages are in the same language family, namely the Austronesian family (Finegan, 2015). However, as an Indonesian speaker with Malaysian roommates, I can definitely perceive the difference. Mainly the differences are in vocabulary, but there are also pronunciation differences. The most recurring pronunciation difference that actually went to the point where I got really annoyed was Malaysians pronunciation of ‘a’ in final position as /ə/. In Indonesian, ‘a’ in final position is not pronounced as /ə/, but rather it is pronounced as /Ʌ/. For example, the same word ‘kenapa’ (why) is pronounced as /kənʌpʌ/ by Indonesians, but /kənʌpə/ by Malaysians. As for vocabulary, there are two stories that I would like to use to illustrate the difference between Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Melayu.

One day as I prepared to leave the apartment, my roommate approached me and told me that it will be very ‘sejuk’ that day. I looked at my clothes, a very thick coat with thermal underneath, and decided that if it will be ‘sejuk’ today, then I better change my clothes. Because ‘sejuk’ in Indonesian is ‘cool’, wearing those clothes felt too much. Hence, I changed my clothes and went out of the apartment. What a big surprise did I get when I got out! It was freezing cold! I would never have characterized it as ‘sejuk’. It was ‘dingin’! Or cold in English. I came back into the apartment and asked my roommate, “What did you mean by ‘sejuk’? It was ‘dingin’ out there, freezing cold!”. Then my roommate explained that ‘sejuk’ is cold in Malaysian. Since then we tried not to talk in Bahasa.

Another story was actually recounted by my lecturer back in Indonesia. He was a graduate student in Malaysia and so he had some Malaysian friends. It was a Friday and one of his friends came up to him to tell my lecturer that he will ‘jemput’ my lecturer to a party tomorrow night. In Indonesian, ‘jemput’ means to pick up. Naturally my lecturer waited for his friend to pick him up the next day. He waited, and waited, and waited. He tried calling his friend, but the call didn’t get through. He didn’t get to the party that night. When he met his friend in class, the friend was very mad at him and asked my lecturer in a very angry tone why he didn’t go to the party. He was so confused, he thought he was the one who was supposed to be angry! He then said, “I thought you were going to ‘jemput’ me?”. The friend said, “Yeah, I ‘jemput’ you to the party!”. My lecturer then realized that there must be some kind of misunderstanding. He eventually found out that ‘jemput’ in Malaysian means to invite, not to pick up.

Reference
Finegan, E. (2015). Language: Its structure and use (7th ed.). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.