Johor Malay (, ; ; Jawi: بهاس ملايو جوهر) is a Malayic language that is spoken from Singapore northwards into the Malay Peninsula reaching until southern Perak. More broadly, this variety of Malay is also called Johor-Riau Malay or Riau-Johor Malay, referring to its close relatedness with Riau Malay.
Being the native dialect of early Malay broadcasters of Radio Malaya which was based in Singapore, the accent of this variety of Malay eventually came to be perceived as standard and formed the basis of the schwa-variety pronunciation standard of Standard Malay which now predominates the Malaysian media.
Dialects Johor Malay can be divided into three dialects: Johor Bahru: The most widespread, stretching from Singapore and Johor Bahru to southern Perak. Muar-Batu Pahat: Mainly spoken around the towns of Muar and Batu Pahat and reaches as far as southern Malacca. Mersing: Spoken mainly around Mersing. Phonetically, these dialects differ very little from each other. The main difference between them is found in how word-final ⟨ar⟩ and vowel clusters are pronounced.
Phonology
Consonants The consonant inventory of Johor Malay consists of 19 consonants, and is largely identical with that of Standard Malay.
LabialDenti-alv./AlveolarPost-alveolarPalatalVelarGlottalNasalPlosive/AffricateFricativeApproximant Notes: ⟨r⟩ is realized as a velar fricative unlike in Standard Malay where it is an alveolar , so a word like 'house' is pronounced . /ɣ/ is silent in word-final position so 'dirty' is pronounced . The same is true for affixes such as which is pronounced . In the Mersing dialect, a glottal stop is epenthesized in the middle of vowel clusters, so a word like 'fruit' would be pronounced .
Vowels The vowel inventory of Johor Malay is largely identical to that of schwa-variety Standard Malay pronunciation, except in the Muar dialect where the vowel is also found.
+ Monophthongs of Johor Malay Front Central Back Close Mid Mid-open () Open
+ Diphthongs of Johor Malay Coda Notes: Word-final ⟨a⟩ is realized as schwa so 'to read' is pronounced . In closed-final syllables, ⟨i⟩ and ⟨u⟩ are pronounced as and so 'sweet' and 'to snap' are pronounced and . In the Muar-Batu Pahat dialect, word-final ⟨ar⟩ is realized as , so while the word 'snake' would be pronounced in other dialects of Johor, it would be pronounced in the Muar-Batu Pahat dialect. This Muar-Batu Pahat feature is believed to be an advanced version of the pronunciation found in Malaccan Malay ( < ) where the diphthong has further monophthongized into .
Grammar Johor Malay is perhaps most noted for its use of clause-final 'but' (mostly in the state of Johor), which would normally be used clause-initilally in Standard Malay and in other varieties of Malay, as shown below:
Vocabulary Like any other variety of Malay, Johor Malay contains a number of words either unique to itself or not typically used in Standard Malay. Below is a non-exhaustive list of such words as found in Johor:Lion, M. (2026). Kamus Bahasa Johor: Istilah Unik. Scribd. https://www.scribd.com/doc/45646312/BAHASA-ANAK-JOHOR
+Vocabulary ComparisonJohor MalayStandard MalayEnglish meaning1fat2greedy3blanket4sharpen (a pencil)5chew
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