By Uli Kozok (2023)
Indonesian is classified within the Austronesian language family, while English falls under the Indo-European language group. Despite their distinct origins, these language groups share little in common, save for loanwords. For instance, the English term ‘compound’ derives from the Indonesian-Malay word kampung, while the Indonesian word polisi originates from the Dutch term politie. Loanwords serve as borrowed linguistic elements bridging these language divides.
Language Families
That English, Dutch, and German are closely related languages is fairly obvious. Simply compare English ‘house’ with German ‘haus’ and Dutch ‘huis’ and you see that the two words are similar because they have the same root. English and German, together with Dutch, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian are members of the Germanic language family. French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish are members of the Romance language family. But both Germanic and Romance languages also share a number of cognates because they are branches of the Indo-European language group, which, next to Germanic and Romance languages also encompasses six more families: Albanian, Armenian, Balto-Slavic, Celtic, Hellenic, and Indo-Iranian. All these language families are derived from the same ancestor, and all share cognates with each other. Cognates are words having the same linguistic derivation as another (e.g. English father, German vater, Italian padre, Persian pedar, Hindi pitā).
Ketchup—Loan words are not Cognates!
English is a Indo-European language, Chinese belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language group, and Malay-Indonesian are Austronesian languages. These three groups have nothing in common except some loan words. The English words Coolie and Tycoon are both loan words from Chinese. Another example is the word Ketchup, but here it gets more complicated. First, the British did not borrow the word straight from Chinese, but via the Malay language. Second, the three related words ketchup, kecap, and kê-tsiap relate to three different condiments.
The British borrowed the word ketchup from Malay kecap, and the Malays received the word kecap from Chinese kê-tsiap! In Malay, kecap (pronounced just like ketchup in English) is soy sauce. In Hokkien Chinese kê-tsiap is fish sauce, and in English Ketchup is a spiced tomato sauce.
The word was borrowed between three languages, but as the Malays did not cook with fish sauce, they used it for soy sauce. The British don’t cook with say sauce, and instead used it for a spiced tomato sauce. Loan words, but also cognates, are words that are related to each other, but do not necessary share the exact same meaning!
Austronesian
Austronesian languages are spoken by about 386 million people (4.9% of the world population) in more than a dozen of countries. This makes it the fifth-largest language family by number of speakers. The number of Austronesian languages is difficult to estimate as there is no clear distinction as to what can be regarded as a language or a dialect. According to some estimates there are over one thousand Austronesian languages! The majority of these 1000+ languages are located in Indonesia. Among all Austronesian languages, Indonesian (bahasa Indonesia), together with its minor sibling Malaysian (bahasa Malaysia), is by far the most important language, spoken by over 200 million speakers.
All Austronesian languages are ultimately derived from Formosan languages spoken by the aborigines in Taiwan. There are a total of several hundred Austronesian languages that are the result of migration. Initially Proto-Austronesian was spoken only on Taiwan, but then people migrated from Taiwan to the Philippines, then to Indonesia, and from Indonesia to Malaysia, Polynesia (including Hawaii and New Zealand), and even to Madagascar. The people of all these countries and regions share the same ancestral language, and they also share the same gene pool.
As you can see from the map (click on “Wikipedia” to enlarge the map), the first Austronesian speakers left Taiwan in 3000 BC, and it took them roughly 4000 years to settle the entire area between Madagascar in Africa and Easter Island not far from the coast of South America.
Comparison of Indonesian with other Austronesian languages:
Malay, in both its Indonesian and Malaysian variants, has a lot in common with other Austronesian languages as far away as Madagascar (Malagasy), or New Zealand (Maori). Given that East Timor is an enclave within Indonesia, it is not surprising that its national Language Tetum also has a lot in common with the Indonesian-Malay language.
| English | Malay | Tagalog | Malagasy | Javanese | Tetum | Maori | Hawaiian |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| eye | mata | mata | manta | mata | matan | mata | maka |
| two | dua | dalawa | rua | loro | rua | rua | lua |
| sky | langit | langit | lanitra | langit | lalean | rangi | lani |
| fish | ikan | isda | trondro | iwak | ikan | ika | iha |
| stone | batu | bato | vato | watu | fatuk | kohatu | haku |
| fire | api | apóy | àfo | apuy | ahi | ahi | ahi |
| mouth | mulut | bibig | váva | tutuk | ibun | waha | waha |
Now you may ask, why are some words so similar while the word for ‘mouth’ is so diverse. Well, the most common words for ‘mouth’ are based on bibih and variants such as bibig, and vava including the variants waha and baba. In many Indonesian regional languages, the word for ‘mouth’ is either bibih or baba, or a variant of the two! In Balinese it is bibih, and in Batak baba. The word bibih and its variants is actually related to Indonesian bibir, which means ‘lips’!
Related Blog Post: Austronesian Languages