Malay alphabet
A Malay alphabet table from this website. I’ve made some adjustments based on what it says in the
accompanying pronunciation videos (one for vowels and
the other for consonants).
|
Malay Alphabet
|
English Sound
|
Pronunciation Example
|
|
a
|
[a]
|
as in father
|
|
b
|
[b]
|
as in bay
|
|
c
|
[ʨ]
|
ch as in chair
|
|
d
|
[d]
|
as in day
|
|
e
|
[ɛ] or [ə] or [eɪ]
|
as in elephant or as in fur or as in ray
|
|
f
|
[f]
|
as in fine
|
|
g
|
[ɡ]
|
as in gold not gentle
|
|
h
|
[h]
|
as in house
|
|
i
|
[i]
|
'ee' as in meat
|
|
j
|
[ʥ]
|
as in job
|
|
k
|
[k]
|
as in kitchen, more softly
pronounced if at end of word
|
|
l
|
[l]
|
as in life
|
|
m
|
[m]
|
as in man
|
|
n
|
[n]
|
as in nice
|
|
o
|
[o]
|
as in olive
|
|
p
|
[p]
|
as in pool
|
|
q
|
[k]
|
as in kiss
|
|
r
|
[r]
|
as in rice
|
|
s
|
[s]
|
as in smile
|
|
t
|
[t]
|
as in time
|
|
u
|
[u]
|
'oo' as in mood
|
|
v
|
[f]
|
f as in free
|
|
w
|
[w]
|
as in wind
|
|
x
|
[ks]
|
as in wax
|
|
y
|
[j]
|
as in year
|
|
z
|
[z]
|
as in Zulu
|
|
|
|
|
ng
|
eng
|
as in hanging, or Thai งู (nguu)
|
|
ny
|
nye
|
as in mañana or El Niño
|
|
kh
|
kha
|
as in Bach or loch
|
|
sy
|
sya
|
as in shield
|
|
ngg
|
nng
|
as in bingo
|
Differences from standard English pronunciation of the 26 letters of the alphabet to note are that the letter c is pronounced [ch] as in chair and the letter v is pronounced [f] as in free. According to the consonants video, k is always pronounced softly at the end of words rather as it is in Thai. The video also says that g is only ever pronounced hard as it is in gold and never soft as it is in gentle.
The vowels video says that there are
two ways of pronouncing e – as the vowel sound in fur or
as the vowel sound in ray. The table on the website gives a third way of
pronouncing it – as it is in elephant. I don’t know which to trust so I’ve put
all three into the table on our site (I will do some more research on this).
The combination consonants ng as in singing and ngg as in bingo are like Thai's ง (ngor nguu) in that they can form the starting consonant of words. A quick note to explain how ngg works: in English, for the two-syllable word bingo, you say ng in the first syllable (bing) and then g in the second syllable (go) and this is exactly what you should do in words that are spelt with ngg in Malay.
kh as in Bach or loch will be easy enough for a Scot to say. A conflicting piece of information from the consonants video though is that words which begin with this combination are either pronounced with a dominant k or a dominant h, and you just need to learn which ones are pronounced which way.
For the other combination consonants, ny as in mañana is also commonly heard pronounced in the meteorological event El Niño. sy is the least obvious one to know how to pronounce on first sight; the table says it should be pronounced [sh] as in shield.
