How similar is Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Melayu?

Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Melayu are similar and different languages at the same time. Although generally mutually intelligible, the two languages have differences in the vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar and spelling. According to the latest data from Ethnologue, about 198.5 million people speak Bahasa Indonesia.

What is Indonesian language name?

Indonesian
Indonesia/Official languages

What is Indonesia’s official name?

Republic of Indonesia
Formal Name: Republic of Indonesia (Republik Indonesia; the word Indonesia was coined from the Greek indos—for India—and nesos—for island). Short Form: Indonesia.

Are Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Melayu the same?

Both languages are mutually intelligible but not exactly the same. Bahasa Indonesia has loanwords from the Dutch language by way of their former colonial masters, and this does not extend to Bahasa Melayu. For example, the word “mobil” to refer to a car comes from the Dutch language but this word is not used in the Malay language.

Are Indonesian and Malay the same language?

If you have, it is very normal, because both derived from same root ancestry (similar to Dutch and German case), which is Malay (Melayu) family language even though they moved on different path. To help you understand differences between Indonesian and Malaysian Language, this article will try to explain as much as it can with several examples.

Where do the loanwords in Bahasa Melayu come from?

The loanwords in Bahasa Melayu would have come from the English language because Malaya (Malaysia & Singapore) was a former British colony. For example, telefon. Like the Dutch language, in Bahasa Indonesia, periods are used instead of commas after the “thousand” number when writing out numerals (eg. 1.000 instead of 1,000).

Why are there so many Dutch loanwords in Bahasa Indonesia?

While Indonesian had long history with Dutch, the Malaysian had more special relation with the British. Therefore, many loanwords in Bahasa Indonesia were derived from Dutch, even though recent new words mostly derived form English or ‘English adjusted’.