# Malay: stress



## Qcumber

Hello
On which syllable are the following Malay words stressed?
abrek = mica
géndi / kéndi = water jug
gondok = goiter


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## D0lph1n

hi there, erm actually its not malay but its indonesian  
the language is almost the same (i.e. indonesian + malay) but unfortunately its local accent (javanese) of indonesia so most malaysian wont understand

javanese people (only javanese, not all indonesian) tend to stressed on these consonants : b, d, g, j
so the anwers for your questions

a*b*rek -> *ab* - brek (in this case the "r" is not stand alone, so say it as if there is double b)

ken*d*i -> ken-*di*

gon*d*ok -> gon - *dok*

*i'm not javanese native speaker, so its best if you ask someone who knows how to speak javanese

hope this helps you


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## Qcumber

Thanks a lot, Dolphin.
By the way, Malay is the language from which Indonesian and Malaysian are derived.


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## D0lph1n

wow, thats a fast reply ^^

official indonesian language(bahasa indonesia) are comprised of many local and native languages (malay, javanese, sundanese, etc, etc)

however those three words are purely javanese terms ( derived from local java culture)(malay culture is from sumatera island and javanese culture is from java island)

additionally, javanese people way of pronounciation is a bit different to formal bahasa indonesia, same goes with malay pronounciation to indonesian pronounciation

(this maybe can be compared with mandarin and cantonese way of speaking)


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## Qcumber

Dolphin, I do understand the vocabulary of Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) is partly made up of vocabularies coming from various languages of Indonesia. 

You see, borrowed words are generally pronounced according to the system of the borrowing language. For instance, Tagalog (Philippines) borrowed libro ['li-bro]"book" from Spanish, but transformed it into libró [lib-'ro] because when a penultimate is closed, stress goes on the ultimate. There are all sorts of such transformation, e.g. ditto French bible [bibl] > English bible ['bai bël]. English site > Japanese saito, etc.

As regards the terms I mentioned, how they are pronounced in Javanese is irrelevant. What matters is how they are pronounced in Indonesian or Malaysian.

Thanks a lot anyway for your kind help.


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