Sound Changes (with changes to the spelling too)
- “a” in the last syllable of many words is replaced by unstressed “e”, i.e. by the schwa sound (e.g. temen = “tM’N” instead of teman)
- “ai” diphthong is replaced by “é ” in many words (e.g. pake “paké” instead of pakai)
- “au” diphthong is replaced by “o” in many words (e.g. kalo instead of kalau)
- “s” sound is dropped at the start of certain words (e.g. aja for saja; uda for sudah)
- “h” sound in some words is dropped at the start of the word or start of a syllable (e.g. abis for habis; liat for lihat)
- “h” sound is dropped at the end of some words (e.g. lebi for lebih)Note: certain words often take more than one of those sound changes. Then they can look very unlike their formal counterpart, e.g. uda for sudah; item for hitam; ijo for hijau
Grammar Changes
- “ber-” prefix can be dropped from many verbs (e.g. bicara for berbicara)
- “meN-” prefix can be dropped from any transitive verb, or at least any reasonably common one (e.g. bawa for membawa)
- “ke-” replaces “ter-“ prefix in many verbs; mostly ones where “ter-” expresses accidental meaning (e.g. kebawa for terbawa)
- “ini/ nih” and “itu/ tuh” can come before the head word. (e.g. nih orang instead of orang nih)
© Tim Hassall 2012
(May be reproduced for private study or for classroom use, with acknowledgement of author)