Symbols
69Click a symbol to copy it and open its page.
Alphabet
The 26 letters in Indonesian order, capital and small. É È Ê sit beside E: optional marks for the closed, open and neutral e, used in dictionaries and learners' books. ng, ny, sy and kh are written with two letters.
Punctuation
The hyphen of anak-anak and its old raised ² shorthand, the apostrophe of 'kan, double quotes for quotations, single quotes for meanings, and the long dash for 'up to' (1945—1949). The rupiah has no sign: write Rp15.000.
Where it's spoken
The national language of Indonesia, a working language of Timor-Leste, and spoken by an Indonesian community in the Netherlands.
On the map
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The Indonesian alphabet A to Z, with letter names
Indonesian (bahasa Indonesia) uses the same 26 letters as English, in the same order, and adds no letters of its own. The names are said the Indonesian way, much as in Dutch: A a, B be, C ce, D de, E e, F ef, G ge, H ha, I i, J je, K ka, L el, M em, N en, O o, P pe, Q ki, R er, S es, T te, U u, V fe, W we, X eks, Y ye, Z zet. When Indonesians spell a word or read out an acronym, these are the names they use: KTP, the identity card, is ka-te-pe.
Spelling is close to the sound. c is always the sound of English 'ch' (cinta, love), j is the j of 'jam', y the y of 'yes', and r is rolled. Four letter pairs each write one consonant: ng (bunga, flower), ny (nyanyi, sing), sy (syarat, condition) and kh (khusus, special). Q, V, X and Z are found mostly in loanwords and names, and F and V are usually pronounced alike.
Does Indonesian use e diacritics? The optional ê for e pepet
Everyday Indonesian is written without any accents. The one letter that hides more than one sound is e: it can be the short neutral vowel, like the a of English 'about' (besar, big), a closed e as in French 'café' (sate), or an open e as in English 'bed' (nenek, grandmother). Native speakers know which is meant from the word.
Under the official spelling rules (Ejaan Bahasa Indonesia yang Disempurnakan), only an optional diacritic on e pepet is specified: ê, pronounced [ə]. It can distinguish teras (terrace) from têras (the core of something). The mark is optional, and you will rarely see it in newspapers, signs or chat.
Old Indonesian spelling: oe, dj, tj and the 1972 reform
The Malay language from which Indonesian developed had earlier been written in scripts including Jawi; a Dutch-based Latin spelling was standardised in 1901 (the van Ophuijsen spelling). In that spelling u was written oe, c tj, j dj, y j, ny nj and kh ch: Djakarta, Soerabaja. The oe was replaced by u in 1947, and in 1972 the spelling reform known as EYD brought in today's c, j, y, ny, sy and kh, in a reform agreed with Malaysia so that Indonesian and Malay spelling would match.
Personal names were never forced to change, which is why the old spelling still lives on in names: the country's second president is usually written Soeharto, while the first is known both as Soekarno and Sukarno. If an Indonesian name has oe, dj or tj, it is the old spelling, and you should copy it exactly as its owner writes it.
Indonesian punctuation and symbols: hyphen, apostrophe, quotes and Rp
The hyphen - does more work in Indonesian than in English. Doubling a word makes a plural or a variety, and the hyphen joins the two halves: anak-anak (children), sayur-mayur (all kinds of vegetables), kupu-kupu (butterfly). It also joins a prefix to a capitalised word or a number, as in se-Indonesia (all over Indonesia) and abad ke-21 (the 21st century). In quick notes and chat a doubled word is often written with a 2, anak2, and older print used a small raised ², anak²; formal writing spells it out.
The apostrophe ' or ’ marks a shortened word or year: 'kan for bukan (isn't it?) or akan (will), and '45 for 1945. Quotations go in double quotes “like this”, and single quotes ‘ ’ give the meaning of a word, as in buku ‘book’. The long dash — means 'up to' between two years, dates or places: 1945—1949, Jakarta—Bandung.
Indonesian writes numbers the continental way, with a dot for thousands and a comma for decimals. The rupiah has no currency sign in Unicode; prices are written with the letters Rp before the amount, Rp15.000 or Rp 15.000, and with cents Rp15.000,00.
How to type Indonesian letters and symbols
Indonesia uses the standard US keyboard, so everything in daily Indonesian is on it already. For the optional e marks on Windows, hold Alt and type on the number pad: é Alt0233, è Alt0232, ê Alt0234, and the capitals É Alt0201, È Alt0200, Ê Alt0202. With the US-International layout, type ' then e for é, then e for è and then e for ê. The curly quotes are Alt0147 “, Alt0148 ”, Alt0145 ‘ and Alt0146 ’, the long dash — is Alt0151 and the raised ² Alt0178.
On a Mac, press OptionE then e for é, Option then e for è and OptionI then e for ê, adding Shift on the second key for the capital; OptionShifthyphen gives the long dash —. On Android and iPhone keyboards, hold down e and slide to the accented form. In HTML the entities are é, è, ê, — and ².
Where Indonesian is spoken, and its relatives
Indonesian is the national language of Indonesia , used in government, schools, the media and between people of different regions. CLDR estimates about 180 million speakers, and far more Indonesians understand it; for many it is a second language beside the one they grew up with at home, such as Javanese, Sundanese, Minangkabau or Balinese, each of which has its own collection here. In Timor-Leste , whose official languages are Tetum and Portuguese, the constitution names Indonesian a working language alongside English, and the Netherlands has a community of an estimated 320,000 speakers, rooted in the colonial past.
Indonesian is a standardised form of Malay, chosen in the Youth Pledge of 28 October 1928 as the language of unity for a country of hundreds of languages. It is largely understood by speakers of Malaysian Malay, and the two have shared their spelling since 1972; see the Malay collection for its Latin and Jawi letters. Centuries of Dutch rule left words such as kantor (office, from kantoor) and handuk (towel, from handdoek); the Dutch collection has that language's own letters.
How to use them
5 situationsClick to copyIndonesian Alphabet & Letters combos
12Worth knowing
- Indonesian was named the language of unity in the Youth Pledge of 1928, years before independence, and it was Malay, not Javanese, the language of the largest ethnic group, that was chosen.
- In the Indonesian alphabet Q is called ki and V is called fe, and acronyms are read out letter by letter with these names: BBM, fuel, is be-be-em.
- Before 1972 Indonesians wrote Djakarta and Soerabaja; the old spelling survives in personal names, so the presidents Soekarno and Soeharto are still often written with oe.
- Old Indonesian and Malay print wrote doubled words with a raised two, anak² for anak-anak, and chat keeps the habit alive as anak2.
Questions people ask
7How many letters are in the Indonesian alphabet?
26, the same A to Z as English, in the same order. Indonesian has no extra letters; ng, ny, sy and kh are written with two letters, and é, è and ê are optional marks on e, not separate letters.
How do you pronounce the Indonesian alphabet?
A a, B be, C ce, D de, E e, F ef, G ge, H ha, I i, J je, K ka, L el, M em, N en, O o, P pe, Q ki, R er, S es, T te, U u, V fe, W we, X eks, Y ye, Z zet. C sounds like English ch, j like English j, and y like English y.
Does Indonesian have accents?
Not in everyday writing. EYD V allows only the optional ê to mark e pepet, the neutral vowel /ə/. It does not prescribe é or è; newspapers, signs and chat normally leave these marks off.
What does ê mean in Indonesian?
It marks the neutral, unstressed e sound, like the a in English 'about', as in bêsar (big). It is an optional pronunciation aid; normally the word is written besar.
What is the Indonesian rupiah symbol?
Rp, written before the amount: Rp15.000 or Rp 15.000. Unicode has no single rupiah sign, so you type the letters R and p. Indonesian uses a dot for thousands and a comma for decimals.
Why are words like anak-anak written with a hyphen?
Doubling a word makes a plural or adds a sense of variety or repetition in Indonesian, and the rules join the two halves with a hyphen. Informal writing shortens it to anak2.
Is Indonesian the same as Malay?
Indonesian is a standardised form of Malay. Indonesians and Malaysians largely understand each other and share the same spelling system since 1972, though vocabulary and pronunciation differ.
