Colloquial Urban Indonesian

Last updated on January 26, 2024

Colloquial Indonesian has its roots in Betawi Malay, a Malay based creole with an estimated 2,7 million speakers, spoken by the indigenous population of Jakarta or Batavia as it was known until 1942. Betawi Malay has two variations, conventional Betawi Malay, spoken by the indigenous population, and modern Jakarta Malay, a slang form spoken by the younger generation and migrants.

This variant of the Indonesian language is characterized by a large number of loan words from foreign languages (Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch etc.) but also from regional languages, especially Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese. The immense influence of Jakarta Malay upon Colloquial Indonesian as it is spoken in the cities and larger towns of the Indonesian archipelago can be explained by a continuous move of people who spend some years in the capital and then return to their place of origin, and of course by the influence of the media. Jakarta Malay is dispersed by popular teenager magazines such as Hai and Populer, and by many radio and television programs (for instance in the very popular soap operas).

Many loan words from Jakarta Malay such as nggak, kok and lho have already deeply penetrated the Indonesian language and are widely used in urban environments throughout Indonesia. Other words such as banget, kangen or mendingan or the particles sih, deh, nih, tuh and dong are also becoming increasingly popular, and should be considered as an essential part of colloquial Indonesian that every student of the Indonesian language should be familiar with.

Unfortunately most textbooks and texts available for students of Indonesian tend to completely ignore this kind of Indonesian that almost every visitor to Indonesia will hear when trying to verbally communicate with Indonesians.

Colloquial Indonesian(C.I.) differs only slightly from Standard Indonesian (S.I.) in phonology, morphology, syntax, or lexicon. It should also be emphasized that the rules of C.I. are to a large degree ‘inconsistent’ as many speakers will frequently use a mix of colloquial and standard language.

Please note that the following ‘explanations’ have the sole purpose to provide students with a brief and practical introduction to the most important features of C.I.

Phonetically C.I. is very similar to S.I.

• In some cases initial /s/ might be dropped. This is, however, mainly limited to three words, i.e. sudah, sama, and saja that regularly become udah, ama, and aja in C.I.
• In proper Betawi Malay final /a/ also changes to /e/ rendering ama to ame, and aja to aje. This, however, is mainly restricted to ‘true’ Betawi Malay, and only occasionally found in C.I.
• The vowel /a/ in final closed syllables, however, almost always changes to /e/: seneng, pantes, bener, males, simpen, etc.
• The diphtong /au/ is usually contracted to /o/, sometimes followed by a glottal stop: kalau —kalo –> kalok, atau –> ato. mau –> mo;
• The diphthong /ai/ is typically replaced by /ae/ : main –> maen, often co-occurring with an attached glottal stop: kalau –> kalo –> kalok.

In C.I. the prefix me- is usually dropped while pre-nasalization of the root word is maintained. The following table illustrates this:

Although this is a fairly straightforward process, we encounter some forms that do not have a Standard Indonesian meN- equivalent. The S.I. equivalent of mikir is usually berpikir, and that of neduh is berteduh and not meneduh. It must be emphasized at this point that, although very similar to Standard Indonesian, colloquial Indonesian of the Betawi Malay style, is indeed a different dialect with a slightly different grammar. This is quite clear in the different usage of the suffix -an – as for instance in temenan where it expresses reciprocity for which, in Standard Indonesian, the circumflex ber–an is employed.

The same holds for the Betawi Malay prefix ke- that is (roughly, but not always) equivalent to the S.I. prefix ter-, and also for the Batawi Malay suffix -in that largely has the same functions as the S.I. suffixes -kan and -i, but again, there is no guarantee that root words with the suffix -in always do correspond with equivalent Indonesian -kan or -i forms. This is evident in the case of ngapain derived from apa. The Standard Indonesian equivalent is mengapakan (do what to): Mau diapakan tulisan ini? = Mau diapain tulisan ini? (What are you going to do with that text?). Ngapain has, however, a second additional meaning that is “do what’: Lagi ngapain sih? What are you doing?

This example clearly shows us that colloquial urban Indonesian does follow its own rules, but for the sake of understanding the texts and soundtracks presented in this volume it is sufficient to address only a few of the main points where C.I. differs from S.I.

Many of the colloquialism used in the interviews are very common words including bilang (= katakan, say), kasi (= beri give), telat (= terlambat, too late), sip (great, okay), short forms such as gini, gitu, gimana, dikit etc., or the preposition sama that, in colloquial speech, can replace almost every preposition.

The following table provides a small number of very frequently used words, exclamations, and particles in C.I.

Letters to close friends are usually written in colloquial Indonesian. It is quite common to use some English phrases (mostly ill-spelt though). Since there is no spelling convention for C.I. one will encounter several spellings for the same word, e.g. enggak, nggak, or ngga. Generally the spelling is very close to the actual pronunciation.

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Above is the preview from Modular Teaching Resources for Upper-Intermediate Indonesian at The University of Hawaii at Manoa .

The University of Hawaii at Manoa offers three dedicated distance education e-learning courses for advanced Indonesian under the supervision of Dr. Uli Kozok, coordinator of the Indonesian language program at the University of Hawaii. The three courses offered are available not only to UH students but to anyone anywhere. You can enrol through UH Outreach College.