Indonesian voice overs: what you need to know

Indonesian (also known as Bahasa Indonesia)  is one of the standardized varieties of the Malay language. Indonesian belongs to the Austronesian language family and it’s primarily spoken in Indonesia and East Timor.

Additionally, the Indonesian variety is recognized as one of the official languages of ASEAN (The Association of Southeast Asian Nations).

Because of Indonesia’s vast population, Indonesian is spoken by an impressive 156 million people. However, only 23 million speakers are native — a rare occurrence where second-language speakers outnumber the natives!

Language History

Indonesian, just like its parent language Malay, originated from Proto-Malay — an ancient language family in Southeast Asia.

However, Indonesian as a separate language is much younger than Malay. Indonesian emerged during Indonesia’s colonial years in mid 20th century.

Indonesia, unlike other colonized countries, rejected Dutch — the colonial language that was brought to the archipelago. Instead, the national movement began to instate a local variety of Malay as the official language of the country.

Officially, Indonesian as a distinct variety of Malay and the official language of Indonesia was introduced in 1945, as part of Indonesia’s declaration of independence.

Close Relations

Indonesian is mostly related to other Malay varieties. Indonesian and standard Malay — the two standard varieties — are fully mutually intelligible.

Additionally, Indonesian is similar to other Austronesian languages, mostly to Javanese and Sundanese. However, the similarities between these languages are quite limited and are most noticeable in grammar and vocabulary.

Indonesian extensively borrowed words from other languages. The core of the Indonesian vocabulary comes from Old Malay.

However, loanwords in Arabic, Sanskrit, and Chinese are very common. Since Indonesia was a colony, Dutch and Portuguese loanwords are also vastly used. More recently, due to popular culture and technology, English words have entered Indonesian too.

Accents and Voice Over Tips

Since Indonesian is a variety of Malay, it’s rather hard to say how many spoken dialects of Indonesian exist. Impressively, more than 700 different languages are spoken in Indonesia and Indonesian is commonly spoken as a second language. Naturally, each language had an impact on how Indonesian is spoken in that region.

However, standard Indonesian — or bahasa baku — is used in all official matters: education, politics, and foreign relations.

When recording an Indonesian voice over, it’s important to understand the main differences between Indonesian and standard Malay. While they are mutually intelligible, they share differences in pronunciation, grammar, and especially vocabulary. It’s worth noting that some words are used in both dialects but have very different meanings. So make sure you use the appropriate vocabulary!

Apart from its similarity to standard Malay, Indonesian is a rather easy language to read for non-natives. The words are pronounced exactly the same as they’re written and the pitch doesn’t change the word’s meaning.

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