# Indonesian: Word Stress



## C_Nor

Hai! There is a book which states, depending on what part of Indonesia the speaker is from, the accent might fall on the next to last syllable or the final syllable. A given example, with Sumatrans, the stress of words falls on the next to last syllable. With the Javanese, the stress falls on the last syllable. 

Other examples would be appreciated. 

Terima kasih.


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## yukilicious

As with Sundanese it falls on the last syllable too, I think, but it's much softer than Javanese accent.


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## Qcumber

That's funny because if you have a look at jawi texts - Malay texts written in Arabic characters - you'll notice the long vowels of Arabic are used to mark the stressed vowels, and the majority of words are stressed on the penultimate.
From what you say, stress must be unimportant in Indonesian and Malaysian.


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## yukilicious

Qcumber said:


> That's funny because if you have a look at jawi texts - Malay texts written in Arabic characters - you'll notice the long vowels of Arabic are used to mark the stressed vowels, and the majority of words are stressed on the penultimate.
> From what you say, stress must be unimportant in Indonesian and Malaysian.


 
In Indonesian stress doesn't necessarily change the meaning. It has something to do with accents.


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## C_Nor

Terima kasih for the replies.


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## yukilicious

sama-sama  ada pertanyaan lagi?


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## C_Nor

yukilicious said:


> sama-sama  ada pertanyaan lagi?


 
Does that mean, "What was the question again?"


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## yukilicious

no, it means "is there any more question?"


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## C_Nor

HAHAHAHA! I was close!  
For now, there are no more questions. Makasih.


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## yukilicious

you learned fast


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## C_Nor

Well, with the help of: http://www.toggletext.com/index.php.


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## yukilicious

bagus lah


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## Qcumber

yukilicious said:


> in Indonesian stress doesn't necessarily change the meaning. it has something to do with accents.


So I can say báhasa, bahása or bahasá and everybody will understand "language".
Yet, there must be a default accent. For instance I have the impression people say bahása.
Is that correct?


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## yukilicious

ehh we just say "bahasa" and yes, everybody will understand no matter how you say it


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## C_Nor

Qcumber said:


> So I can say báhasa, bahása or bahasá and everybody will understand "language".
> Yet, there must be a default accent. For instance I have the impression people say bahása.
> Is that correct?


 
I read that sometimes _bahasa _is pronounced _basa, _because when the _h_ sound falls between two vowels in the middle of a word, it is not pronounced.


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## yukilicious

In Sundanese _bahasa _(language) is _basa_ and Javanese _boso. _People who pronounce _bahasa_ _basa_ are more likely influenced by Sundanese accent. I don't know why sometimes foreigners call Indonesian just _bahasa_.


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## C_Nor

yukilicious said:


> in Sundanese _bahasa _(language) is _basa_ and Javanese _boso. _people who pronounce _bahasa_ _basa_ are more likely influenced by Sundanese accent.


 
Good to know!



yukilicious said:


> I don't know why sometimes foreigners call Indonesian just _bahasa_.


 
When I learned that bahasa means "language", it was a few days ago, when I read a comment someone made online. I don't remember where online, but they basically said that they (who I believe is a foreigner) are tired of hearing people use _bahasa_ as meaning _Indonesian_. They said it simply means "language", and to stop using it as meaning Indonesian. Don't worry about this foreigner. I won't be one of those people.


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## Qcumber

yukilicious said:


> ehh we just say "bahasa" and yes, everybody will understand no matter how you say it


By the way, how do you stress this word yourself?
1) báhasa
2) bahása
3) bahasá


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## yukilicious

> By the way, how do you stress this word yourself?
> 1) báhasa
> 2) bahása
> 3) bahasá



1. B*aa*hasa
2. Bah*aa*sa
3. Bahas*aa*

Stress doesn't matter in Indonesian.  We don't even use stress marks.


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## Qcumber

yukilicious said:


> 1. B*aa*hasa 2. Bah*aa*sa 3. Bahas*aa*
> Stress doesn't matter in Indonesian.


 Sorry, but I don't believe you. I am sure you only use one of the three options I offered, definitely not the three of them. 
Perhaps you don't what the linguistic term "stress" mean ...


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## C_Nor

C_Nor said:


> When I learned that bahasa means "language", it was a few days ago, when I read a comment someone made online. I don't remember where online, but they basically said that they (who I believe is a foreigner) are tired of hearing people use _bahasa_ as meaning _Indonesian_. They said it simply means "language", and to stop using it as meaning Indonesian. Don't worry about this foreigner. I won't be one of those people.


 
I found the link to the comment here: http://www.merlyna.org/blog/index.php/2006/do-you-speak-bahasa/.


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## MarX

C_Nor said:


> When I learned that bahasa means "language", it was a few days ago, when I read a comment someone made online. I don't remember where online, but they basically said that they (who I believe is a foreigner) are tired of hearing people use _bahasa_ as meaning _Indonesian_. They said it simply means "language", and to stop using it as meaning Indonesian. Don't worry about this foreigner. I won't be one of those people.


I am also confused every time someone says *Bahasa* to refer to Indonesian. We either say *Bahasa Indonèsia* or *Indonesian* (when speaking in English), but we never say only *bahasa*, because it just means _language_.
*Bahasa *could be Indonesian or English or whatever other language.



Qcumber said:


> Sorry, but I don't believe you. I am sure you only use one of the three options I offered, definitely not the three of them.
> Perhaps you don't what the linguistic term "stress" mean ...


I'm afraid Yukilicious is right, I know many languages and I've learned what s_tress_ means, yet in Indonesian you really can't say whether a word is stressed this or that way. Often a word is actually stressed equally on each syllable, in which case one can even say that it doesn't have any stress.

Other influencing factors:
1. (regional, social, etc) accents
2. even if a word is stressed, it changes depending on its position in a sentence.
3. In Indonesian (at least in Jakarta), when someon tries to stress something, it usually involves change in intonation, or lengthening of vowels, instead of (phonological) stress.


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## theo1006

Qcumber said:


> Sorry, but I don't believe you. I am sure you only use one of the three options I offered, definitely not the three of them.
> Perhaps you don't what the linguistic term "stress" mean ...


 
Perhaps non-Indonesians have a different feeling for words stress? I am not a native Indonesian speaker like MarX and yukilicious, but I have been fluent in Indonesian for forty years and I come down on Qcumber's side.

True that word stress is not important in Indonesian, and usually weak or absent. But if you want to stress a word, there are rules, you cannot put the stress anywhere. And for most words the rule is: stress comes on the syllable before the last.

So you can say _bah*a*sa, _or you can use so little stress that it is inaudible: _bahasa. _But _b*a*hasa_ and _bahas*a*_ sound queer.

Another example.
"What language is he speaking now?" - "He is speaking Indon*e*sian." English stresses the *e,* because the word Indonesian is the most important of the answer.
This could be said in Indonesian:
"Bahasa mana dipakainya sekarang?" - "Dia memakai bahasa Indonesia."
In the answer you can say _Indonesia_ or _Indon*e*sia_, but not _Indonesi*a*_ or _Ind*o*nesia_.
However, for the function of stress which is 'highlighting' the most important word of a sentence, in Indonesian one can use word order. A sentence starts with the word that is foremost in the speaker's mind, and the sentence is then constructed from that starting point. With that principle the natural answer at the above question becomes:
"Bahasa Indonesia yang dipakainya."


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## MarX

theo1006 said:


> Perhaps non-Indonesians have a different feeling for words stress? I am not a native Indonesian speaker like MarX and yukilicious, but I have been fluent in Indonesian for forty years and I come down on Qcumber's side.
> 
> True that word stress is not important in Indonesian, and usually weak or absent. But if you want to stress a word, there are rules, you cannot put the stress anywhere. And for most words the rule is: stress comes on the syllable before the last.
> 
> So you can say _bah*a*sa, _or you can use so little stress that it is inaudible: _bahasa. _But _b*a*hasa_ and _bahas*a*_ sound queer.
> 
> Another example.
> "What language is he speaking now?" - "He is speaking Indon*e*sian." English stresses the *e,* because the word Indonesian is the most important of the answer.
> This could be said in Indonesian:
> "Bahasa mana dipakainya sekarang?" - "Dia memakai bahasa Indonesia."
> In the answer you can say _Indonesia_ or _Indon*e*sia_, but not _Indonesi*a*_ or _Ind*o*nesia_.
> However, for the function of stress which is 'highlighting' the most important word of a sentence, in Indonesian one can use word order. A sentence starts with the word that is foremost in the speaker's mind, and the sentence is then constructed from that starting point. With that principle the natural answer at the above question becomes:
> "Bahasa Indonesia yang dipakainya."


That's interesting.
I honestly pronounce *bahasa *without any stress. At least not comparable to the stress in English, German, or Spanish.
I pronounce *Indonesia* like _Indonesya_.
In both cases, even if there is a stress, then a slight one on the last syllable.

I know that many Indonesians from other parts of the country have sometimes very strong stress in their pronunciation, some examples are the *Batak* and *Manado *people.
In the case of *Manado* *dialect*, *bahasa* is stressed on the penultimate syllable, just as many other words. In fact, their stress and intonation system reminds one of Portuguese or Spanish, some *Moluccans* have a very defined intonation that it's even comparable to Italian.

Please note that I make a difference between stress, intonation, and vowel length.

Salam


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## theo1006

MarX said:


> That's interesting.
> I honestly pronounce *bahasa *without any stress.


 
Maybe this is the key to the discussion.  Non-native - or at least Western speakers- will use more stress, and than the pronunciation becomes queer if it is on the wrong syllable.
Examples:
A long time ago I attended a church meeting in Holland where they discussed their relations with sister churches in Java.  The chairman kept talking about *Ci*lacap, and about Kebu*men* (as if the latter were situated in France: Kebumène, only shorter).  Sounded very queer to me.
And recently I met a retired Dutchman (like me) who told me he lived in *Ung*aran.  Although married to an Indonesian, his _bahasa Indonesia_ was poor.

Bye,
Theo


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## rasserie

Hi

Stumbled across this interesting forum.

I speak Malay which shares most spoken words with Bahasa Indonesia although sometimes not the same pronounciation.

Yes, Bahasa in the Malay language means LANGUAGE.

So when I first came across people describing the Indonesian Malay language as just BAHASA perplexed me because I understand BAHASA to just mean language.

Same like BAHASA Inggeris means English Language.

Just to clarify what I understand.

And also, traditional Malay uses diacritical marks but modern written Malay eliminates the usage of diacritics. As far as I know.

Concerning the usage of stress in certain syllables, even in the Malay language, no matter which syllables are stressed, it does not change the meaning at all.


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