Indonesian

Austronesian family · Malayo-Sumbawan branch · Papunesia

Indonesian is an SVO language, like 488 of the 1,376 languages WALS codes for basic word order.

On Applicative Constructions, WALS codes Indonesian as “Benefactive object only; transitive base only”, a value held by 4 of the 183 languages coded, Asmat and Una among them.

On Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology, WALS codes Indonesian as “Consistently zero-marking”, a value held by 6 of the 236 languages coded, Vietnamese and Pirahã among them.

Only 6 languages have more of the profile features coded than Indonesian.

The order Indonesian uses in 9 pairings of a head word and its dependent. Bars: how all languages coded for each pairing split, before or after.

Contrast Indonesian with Batak (Karo) or with any other language

Uncommon values

Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Indonesian, rarest first.

Coding of Nominal PluralityPlural by complete reduplication of stem8 of 1,066
Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content QuestionsMixed, some interrogative phrases obligatorily initial, some not23 of 902
Position of Polar Question ParticlesQuestion particle in either of two positions26 of 884
Politeness Distinctions in PronounsPronouns avoided for politeness7 of 207
Negative MorphemesNegative word, unclear if verb or particle73 of 1,157
Verbal Person MarkingPerson marking of only the P argument24 of 378
Zero Marking of A and P ArgumentsZero-marking16 of 235
The PerfectPerfect derived from word meaning 'finish' or 'already'21 of 222

Inside the Austronesian family

Indonesian matches the most frequent Austronesian value on 94 of the 138 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (68%). Among the 38 Austronesian languages profiled here, that rate ranks 13th from the top.

Where Indonesian breaks with a clear majority of its relatives
Feature	Indonesian	Most relatives
Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology	Predominantly suffixing	Little or no inflectional morphology (5 of 5, Malayo-Sumbawan branch)
Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes	Tense-aspect suffixes	No tense-aspect inflection (5 of 5, Malayo-Sumbawan branch)
Reduplication	Full reduplication only	Productive full and partial reduplication (4 of 4, Malayo-Sumbawan branch)
Distributive Numerals	No distributive numerals	Marked by reduplication (4 of 4, Malayo-Sumbawan branch)

Closest profiles

Languages that share the most coded values with Indonesian; the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.

Batak (Karo) Austronesian68 of 92
Vietnamese Austro-Asiatic88 of 127
Khmer Austro-Asiatic67 of 98
Sundanese Austronesian32 of 44
Taba Austronesian66 of 98

The rest of the profile

WALS codes Indonesian for 138 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 123 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Indonesian shares with the fewest languages comes first.

Sounds 19

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Fixed Stress Locations	Penultimate	110 of 502
Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives	Voicing contrast in both plosives and fricatives	158 of 567
Syllable Structure	Complex syllable structure	151 of 486
The Velar Nasal	Velar nasal, also initially	147 of 469
Consonant Inventories	Average	201 of 563
Consonant-Vowel Ratio	Average	234 of 564
Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems	/p t k b d g/	255 of 567
Rhythm Types	Trochaic: left-hand syllable in the foot is strong	153 of 323
Vowel Quality Inventories	Average vowel inventory (5-6)	287 of 564
Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems	No weight, or weight factor unknown	261 of 500
Weight-Sensitive Stress	Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)	281 of 500
Tone	No tones	307 of 527
Lateral Consonants	/l/, no obstruent laterals	388 of 567
Glottalized Consonants	No glottalized consonants	409 of 567
Vowel Nasalization	Contrastive nasal vowels absent	180 of 244
Presence of Uncommon Consonants	None	449 of 567
Uvular Consonants	No uvulars	470 of 567
Absence of Common Consonants	All present	503 of 567
Front Rounded Vowels	None	525 of 562

Word structure 8

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives	Exclusively isolating	16 of 165
Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases	Possessor has no marking	32 of 236
Locus of Marking in the Clause	P has no marking	42 of 236
Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking	No subject person/number marking	57 of 198
Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb	4-5 categories per word	52 of 145
Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives	No case	75 of 162
Case Syncretism	Inflectional case marking is absent or minimal	123 of 198
Exponence of Tense-Aspect-Mood Inflection	monoexponential TAM	127 of 160

Nouns and pronouns 25

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Comitatives and Instrumentals	Mixed	33 of 322
Definite Articles	Demonstrative word used as marker of definiteness	69 of 620
Numeral Classifiers	Numeral classifiers are optional	62 of 400
Ordinal Numerals	First/one-th, two-th, three-th	54 of 321
Indefinite Articles	No indefinite article but definite article	98 of 534
Occurrence of Nominal Plurality	Plural in all nouns, always optional	55 of 291
The Associative Plural	Special non-bound associative plural marker	47 of 236
Indefinite Pronouns	Generic-noun-based indefinites	85 of 326
Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes	No possessive affixes	260 of 902
Asymmetrical Case-Marking	No morphological case-marking	81 of 261
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns	Inclusive and exclusive differentiated	63 of 200
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection	No person marking at all	70 of 200
Position of Case Affixes	Neither case affixes nor adpositional clitics	379 of 1,031
Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers	Formally similar, involving interrogative expression	43 of 116
Number of Cases	No morphological case-marking	100 of 261
Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns	Person-number stem	114 of 261
Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives	Unrelated	100 of 225
Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives	Two-way contrast	126 of 234
Person Marking on Adpositions	Adpositions without person marking	209 of 378
Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns	Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns are formally identical	94 of 168
Number of Genders	None	145 of 257
Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems	No gender system	145 of 257
Systems of Gender Assignment	No gender system	145 of 257
Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns	No gender distinctions	254 of 378
Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives	Same forms	143 of 201

Noun phrases 8

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses	Weakly differentiated	15 of 138
Action Nominal Constructions	Ergative-Possessive	21 of 168
Adjectives without Nouns	Marked by preceding word	18 of 124
Noun Phrase Conjunction	WITH-languages: 'and' and 'with' are identical	103 of 234
Possessive Classification	No possessive classification	125 of 243
Nominal and Verbal Conjunction	Nominal and verbal conjunction are largely identical	161 of 301
Obligatory Possessive Inflection	No obligatorily possessed nouns	201 of 244
Number of Possessive Nouns	None reported	233 of 243

Verbs: tense, mood, evidence 15

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
The Morphological Imperative	No second-person imperatives	122 of 548
Situational Possibility	Affixes on verbs	63 of 234
The Prohibitive	Normal imperative + special negative	182 of 496
Epistemic Possibility	Other	91 of 240
The Past Tense	No grammatical marking of past/non-past distinction	88 of 222
Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality	No grammatical evidentials	181 of 418
Coding of Evidentiality	No grammatical evidentials	181 of 418
The Future Tense	No inflectional marking of future/non-future distinction	112 of 222
Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking	No overlap	105 of 207
Imperative-Hortative Systems	The language has neither a maximal nor a minimal system	201 of 375
Perfective/Imperfective Aspect	No grammatical marking of perfective/imperfective distinction	121 of 222
Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect	No suppletion in tense or aspect	123 of 193
Suppletion in Imperatives and Hortatives	None (= no suppletive imperatives reported in the reference material)	153 of 193
Verbal Number and Suppletion	No singular-(dual)-plural pairs/triples	159 of 193
The Optative	Inflectional optative absent	271 of 319

Word order 11

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Order of Genitive and Noun	Noun-genitive (NGen)	468 of 1,249
Order of Numeral and Noun	Numeral precedes noun (NumN)	479 of 1,154
Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb	Verb-object-oblique (VOX)	210 of 500
Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase	Prepositions	511 of 1,184
Order of Demonstrative and Noun	Demonstrative word follows noun (NDem)	562 of 1,225
Order of Object and Verb	Object follows verb (VO)	705 of 1,518
Order of Degree Word and Adjective	Degree word precedes adjective (DegAdj)	227 of 481
Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause	Initial subordinator word	398 of 659
Order of Adjective and Noun	Modifying adjective follows noun (NAdj)	879 of 1,367
Order of Relative Clause and Noun	Relative clause follows noun (NRel)	579 of 824
Order of Subject and Verb	Subject precedes verb (SV)	1,192 of 1,496

Simple clauses 22

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give'	Mixed	40 of 378
Expression of Pronominal Subjects	Obligatory pronouns in subject position	82 of 711
Other Roles of Applied Objects	No other roles (= Only benefactive)	36 of 183
Predicative Possession	Topic Possessive	48 of 240
Periphrastic Causative Constructions	Sequential type but no purposive type	35 of 118
Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation	Symmetric standard negation only: Type Sym	114 of 297
Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation	Non-assignable (no asymmetry found)	114 of 297
Predicative Adjectives	Predicative adjectives have verbal encoding	151 of 386
Passive Constructions	There is a passive construction	162 of 373
Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals	Zero copula is possible	175 of 386
Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns	Neutral	79 of 172
Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking	No zero realization of third person S forms	181 of 380
Order of Person Markers on the Verb	A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb	187 of 379
Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases	Neutral	98 of 190
Alignment of Verbal Person Marking	Accusative alignment	212 of 380
Reciprocal Constructions	Distinct from reflexive	99 of 175
Polar Questions	Question particle	585 of 955
Nominal and Locational Predication	Different	269 of 386
Antipassive Constructions	No antipassive	146 of 194
Productivity of the Antipassive Construction	no antipassive	146 of 186
Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions	Morphological type but no compound type	254 of 310
Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation	Negative indefinites co-occur with predicate negation	170 of 206

Complex sentences 7

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Purpose Clauses	Balanced	38 of 170
'When' Clauses	Balanced	84 of 174
Relativization on Obliques	Gap Strategy	55 of 112
'Want' Complement Subjects	The complement subject is left implicit	144 of 283
Reason Clauses	Balanced	90 of 169
Relativization on Subjects	Gap	125 of 166
Utterance Complement Clauses	Balanced	114 of 143

Vocabulary 8

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
M in Second Person Singular	m in second person singular	78 of 230
Tea	Words derived from Min Nan Chinese te	84 of 230
Hand and Arm	Different	389 of 617
Numeral Bases	Decimal	125 of 196
M in First Person Singular	No m in first person singular	177 of 230
N-M Pronouns	No N-M pronouns	194 of 230
M-T Pronouns	No M-T pronouns	200 of 230
Finger and Hand	Different	521 of 593