Russian And Indonesian Languages

Hello back, my name is Kerrin. Today I am going to cover a topic about the differences between Russian and Indonesian. Some people have asked me whether Russian and Indonesian are similar, since I also know Indonesian, I think I will cover this topic.

Here are the differences between Russian and Indonesian language:

Writing System

The Russian language and Indonesian language have a very different writing system. While Russian uses a Cyrillic alphabet as their writing system, Indonesian uses a Latin alphabet as their writing system. This Latin alphabet writing system is being adapted with Indonesian phonology, which made Indonesian language phonetic. Indonesian uses the Latin alphabet with 26 characters, while Russian uses Cyrillic alphabet with 33 letters.

Phonology and Stress Accentization

Both of the languages have differences in phonology. In the consonants, Russian differentiates between the hard and the soft consonants, which is called palatalization. Here are the explanations:

  • Hard consonants (non-palatalized) The consonants are being pronounced with tongue pulled back.

  • Soft consonants (palatalized) The consonants are being pronounced with the tongue raised towards the hard palate, resulted in “y” - like sounds in a consonants.

Also, Russian uses two version of vowels to mark whetheit the preceding consonants is soft or not.

After Hard Consonant After Soft Consonant
А а /a/ Я я /ja/
Э э /e/ Е е /je/
Ы ы /ɨ/ И и /i/
О о /o/ Ë ë /jo/
У у /u/ Ю ю /ju/

There are some consonants in Russian which are always hard or soft.

  • Always hard consonants: ж (zh), ш (sh), ц (ts)
  • Always soft consonants: ч (ch), щ (shch), й (y)

Meanwhile Indonesian doesn’t consist of palatalization, and in the consonants, and Indonesian uses unaspirated voiceless plosives, such as /p/, /t/, and /k/. Also, the Indonesian consists the glottal stop /ʔ/ which appears at the end of a word pronounced as “k”, for example “anak” /anaʔ/.

Indonesian doesn’t have consonant clusters while Russian has consonant clusters. While consonant clusters exist in Indonesian, Indonesian language generally favors (Consonant - Vowel) CV or (Consonant - Vowel - Consonant) CVC. Meanwhile in Russian, there are some types of consonant clusters:

  • Two-consonant clusters. For example кто - kto (who)
  • Three-consonant clusters. For example взво́д - vzvod (platoon)
  • Four-consonant clusters. For example встречать - vstrechat’ (to meet)

Also, the stress accent in Indonesian language is regular and falls on the penultimate syllable of a word. While Russians have an unpredictable stress accent. The stress accent in Indonesian is not phonemically contrastive, while it is phonemically contrastive in Russian. Here are the examples of Russian stress accents which are phonemically contrastive:

  • му́ка (múka) = flour

  • мука́ (muká) = torment

  • Оргáн (orgán) = organ (instrument)

  • Óрган (órgan) = organ (part of body)

  • Замóк (zamók) = lock
  • Зáмок (zámok) = castle

Language Family Tree

Both Indonesian and Russian come from different language families. The Indonesian language comes from the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family, while Russian comes from the Eastern Slavic branch of the Indo-European Language family. The Indo-European language family covers a wide swath of Eurasia, which includes the European languages, the Indian subcontinent languages and languages of Iran. Since Russian comes from the Eastern Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family, Russian is closely related to Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn language. Meanwhile, the Austronesian language family encompasses Madagascar, Southeast Asia, the Pacific islands and the Easter Islands. As a part of Malayo-Polynesian branch, Indonesian is closely related to Malay, Javanese, Sundanese, Tagalog, Malagasy, and many other languages.

Thus both languages have different features in grammar and vocabularies, due to different language families origins.

Grammar

Since both Indonesian and Russian come from different language families, both of the languages have differences in grammar. Russian consists of grammatical genders, tenses and cases while Indonesian lacks it. Indonesian have a verb voice or focus system which manifests in extensive prefixes, suffixes and circumfixes, while Russian lacks it.

Since Russian consists of tenses, while Indonesian lacks it, Indonesian uses adverbs of time, aspect markers or contexts to denote tenses. Here are the examples of Indonesian tenses:

Adverbs of time: kemarin (yesterday), besok (tomorrow), minggu lalu (last week), minggu depan (next week), nanti (later)

“Saya makan nasi kemarin” - I ate rice yesterday The word “kemarin” means “yesterday”

“Saya pergi ke Jakarta besok” - I will go to Jakarta tomorrow The word “besok” means “tomorrow”

Aspect Markers: sudah (already), sedang (currently), akan (will)

“Saya sedang makan nasi” - I am eating rice” The word “sedang” indicates the ongoing action is being done in the present tense

“Saya sudah makan nasi” - I has already eaten rice” The word “sudah” indicates that the action had already done in the past

“Saya akan makan nasi” - I will eat rice The word “akan” indicates that the action will be done in the future.

Context: Here are the examples of the usage of context for tenses in Indonesian:

Misha: Kamu melihat Vangelis di negeri dongeng? (Did you see Vangelis in the fairyland?) Masha: Iya, aku melihatnya (Yes, I saw him)

In this context, we can see that both Misha and Masha talk in past tense.

Meanwhile, the Indonesian verb voice or focus system are being used for change the “focus” of a verb. Here are the examples of Indonesian:

Let’s use the word “baca” (To read) as a root word.

  • Membaca - to read (active voice)
  • Dibaca - to be read (passive voice)
  • Pembaca - reader (the agent of an action)
  • Terbaca - accidentally being read (verbs for accidental action)
  • Bacalah - Go read! (Commands)
  • Bacakan - Read for someone! (benefaction actions)
  • Pembacaan - the act of reading (nouns denoting a process) And many more….

Thus, as you can see, Indonesian is an agglutinative language while Russian is a synthetic language

Vocabulary Loanwords

Both languages have differences in vocabularies and their loanwords. Russian have primarily vocabularies Slavic in origin, while took loanwords primarily from Greek, Turkic, German, French, and nowadays English, while Indonesian have primarily old Malay vocabularies, and Indonesian took loanwords from Sanskrit, Arabic, Dutch, Chinese dialects, local languages such as Javanese, and nowadays English as well.

Here are the examples of Russian vocabularies loanwords:

  • Шлагбаум (comes from German schlawbaum, means barrier)
  • Ресторан (comes from French restoran, which means restaurant)
  • Кровать (comes from Greek κρεβάτι, which means bed)
  • Богатырь (comes from Turkic baghatur, which means valiant warrior)
  • Блогер (comes from the English blogger)

Meanwhile, here are the examples of Indonesian vocabularies loanwords:

  • Aksara (comes from Sanskrit “aksara”, which means script)
  • Kwetiaw (comes from Chinese Hokkien kóe-tiâu (粿条), which means “flat rice noodles”)
  • Kualitas (comes from Dutch “kwaliteit”, which means quality)
  • Komputer (comes from the English computer)
  • Alam (comes from the Arabic عالم (ʿĀlam), which means nature)
  • Alun-alun (comes from the Javanese ꦄꦭꦸꦤ꧀ꦄꦭꦸꦤ꧀ (alun-alun), which means “A large field owned by lands”)

Both Russian and Indonesian have been shaped from influences, from trades, conquests and cultural exchanges, which are being demonstrated by the presences of loanwords in both of these languages. Not only enriches the language, these loanwords also showcases the historical relationships and foreign relationships these languages had interacted.

And so here are the differences between Russian and Indonesian. Thank you!