Are Malaysian and Indonesian the same?

Lesson #2 for Kiwis: Malaysian vs Indonesian.

We often get the question, "Aren't Indonesian and Malaysian the same language? I mean, they both use the term "Bahasa" don't they?"

Short and simple, they aren't the same language. Strongly related, mutually comprehensible in certain situations, yes, but not the same.

"Bahasa" just means language in both Malaysian and Indonesian. It does not imply any mutual comprehensibility. In fact the word "bahasa" has a Sanskrit base, and is used in languages as diverse as Javanese, Thai and Khmer to mean the same thing; "language".

So where, and when should you be using these different languages, and what, if any, other languages should you be considering?

Let's look at Malaysian first. Malaysian of course is the first language of Malaysia, yet which confusingly originated in Sumatra. It is also an official language in Singapore and Brunei, and is widely used in Western Sumatra. Historically Malaysian was the trade lingua franca of South East Asia and across the Indian Ocean; there are still communities speaking dialects of Malaysian as far abroad as Southern China, Vietnam and Cambodia, while Malagasy, the national language of Madagascar off the east coast of Africa, is of Malaysian origin.

Indonesian, by contrast, is linguistically termed a dialect of Malay. It is the official language of the nation of Indonesia, used in government, trade and education. Yet of a nation of 240 million only 23 million call it their first language; over 140 million people designate themselves as second language speakers (although they may well be fluent in Indonesian as well as their first language). This leaves some 60 million Indonesians who either term Indonesian as a third language or who cannot speak Indonesian with any degree of confidence.  Compare this with Javanese (the language of Java, the main island of Indonesia), which boasts as many as 85 million native speakers. However, given that Indonesian is the official language of education, expect that over time the use of the national language will increase.

While both languages have absorbed many Sanskrit and Arabic terms, Indonesian was strongly influenced by Javanese and also Dutch languages, the Dutch having ruled Java and many of the islands of Indonesia since the 16th Century. Malaysian, by contrast, received more influence from Tamil and Hindi, and also English.

So should NZ exporters consider one translation for Malay and Indonesian speaking customers? If your translation is for front end marketing purposes, then short answer is no. Aside from the actual language differences, as with all close neighbours there is always a certain amount of tension, and using a Malaysian translation in Indonesia (or vice versa) may not go down to well. And be aware, that particularly in Indonesian, a very strong slang exists often using word plays and borrowings from other native languages (Madurese, Javanese etc.). For documents such as operating manuals etc. then if cost is a serious consideration, then possibly it can work.

Postcript:
On a further review of previous customer enquiries, please don't confuse Malaysian with Malayalam. Malayalam is the language of the Kerala state of south-west India, and has nothing to do with Malaysian.

Language Lesson #1 for Kiwis

Right Kiwis. After more than 20 years living in various places in Asia, and more than 10 years running a translation business, I am constantly amazed at the lack of knowledge Kiwis have on foreign languages. So forgive me for preaching, but time to issue some lessons.

Lesson #1. Mandarin is a spoken language, NOT a written one.

Given the FTA with China and the focus on both selling to China and receiving Chinese investment, I am constantly gob-smacked by the general lack of knowledge in NZ about the Chinese language.

I constantly get asked for a translation from English to Mandarin, the assumption being there is one written language for all Chinese speakers.

Guess, what? We cannot translate to Mandarin. No-one can. Mandarin is a spoken language, not a written one.

Yes, Mandarin is the official spoken language of mainland China (PRC) and Taiwan (ROC), as well as amongst the diaspora in Singapore, the USA, here in NZ etc. Note there are multiple dialects and separate languages as well such as Hakka, Pinghua, Cantonese etc. but most NZ exporters need not worry themselves with those as they will be focussed on translating their written materials.

Can I make it clear that Mandarin is NOT the name of a written language.

There are in fact two written scripts for Chinese, with one of them having two different main "flavors".

Script#1 - Traditional Chinese (TR-CN): This is the old script of Chinese, pre-Communist era. It is used in Taiwan (ROC), Hong Kong, Singapore, and amongst most of the older Chinese diaspora (some Chinese language newspapers in NZ use Traditional script).

Flavor: TR-CN-HK Variant: While in Hong Kong TR-CN is the core, there are some unique characters used in writing not used in Taiwan (in tune with the Cantonese spoken dialect). At the same time, colloquialisms, difference in phrasing etc. can mean a translation done for Taiwan may be inappropriate for Hong Kong, and vice versa.

Script#2 - Simplified Chinese (S-CN): after the revolution, the Communist party went about "rationalizing" the Chinese script (written language). They removed a lot of characters and made others much simpler to write and read, and introduced Pinyin; the use of Roman characters to represent Chinese sounds, whereby literacy went from <50% to almost 100% within 30 years (not a bad effort for one generation eh?). So "Simplified Chinese" is the script used in Mainland China (PRC).

So what is "Mandarin"?

Mandarin is the spoken language. So people from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore etc, can speak the same language, but they write their language differently. Kind of like I spell "colour" with a "u", but an American spells it "color" (no "u"), but on a whole different level. A person in China will say a word e.g. "Green", and a person in Taiwan will understand them. But they will both spell it differently (i.e. use different characters).

What does this mean for you preparing your materials for your Chinese speaking audience?

Well, first you have to decide where your audience is. Mainland China? Hong Kong? Taiwan? Where your audience is will decide what script you use. But note also that as languages stay apart, they diverge. So there are different "turns of phrase", different styles of saying things, different phraseology, so you need to have translators who are au fait with the current local lingo.

One word of warning. There are various software applications out there that claim to be able to convert Simplified to Traditional and vice versa. Few do it well, and they forget that as time progresses, the "style" of writing diverges. Use with caution.

Here ends Lesson #1. Like for Lesson #2: Malaysian vs Indonesian.