Script guide › Latin
How to recognize Indonesian / Malay
Indonesian / Malay is one of 35 languages in Grafle's Latin group. Here's what it looks like, where you'll see it on signs, and how to tell it apart from its lookalikes.
Spot it fast
- Clean Latin with no accents at all; prefixes me-, ber-, di- everywhere, plus hyphenated doubled words (lama-lama).
- The endings -nya and -kan are also everywhere. On street signs, Jl. (Jalan = street) is the giveaway.
What Indonesian / Malay looks like
Semua orang dilahirkan merdeka dan mempunyai martabat yang sama.
Halo, apa kabar? Senang bertemu dengan kamu.
Sedikit demi sedikit, lama-lama menjadi bukit.
Latin scripts: The alphabet you're reading now. Each language gives itself away by its own special letters and accent marks.
Where you'll see it on signs
- Indonesia
- Malaysia
- Brunei
- Singapore
Easy to confuse with
- Tagalog (Filipino) — Tagalog's tiny words 'ng' and 'mga' are unique; Indonesian/Malay runs on prefixes (me-, ber-, di-) and hyphenated doubles (lama-lama).
- Swahili — Both are clean, vowel-final Latin — Swahili starts words with m-/wa- (watu wote), Indonesian/Malay uses me-/ber-/di- prefixes.
- Vietnamese — Vietnamese is instantly recognizable by stacked diacritics; Indonesian/Malay has none at all.