How does the tool decide a word is a loanword?

It matches each word against a curated dictionary of well-known Malay borrowings from English and Arabic. It does not guess from spelling, so only words on the list are flagged, keeping false positives low.

Which English loanwords does it know?

Common technical and everyday borrowings such as komputer, telefon, televisyen, bas, teksi, polis, sains and universiti. These entered Malay largely during and after British colonial influence.

Which Arabic loanwords does it know?

Religious and social vocabulary like selamat, masjid, kitab, ilmu, dunia, waktu and syukur, reflecting centuries of Islamic influence on the Malay world.

Will it work on Indonesian too?

Partly. Malay and Indonesian share a large core vocabulary and many of the same loanwords, so most matches hold, though some spellings differ between the two standards.

Is my text sent anywhere?

No. Matching happens against the built-in list entirely in your browser. Your text is never uploaded.

What is the Malay Loanword Detector?

Scans Malay text and highlights probable English loanwords like komputer and telefon, plus Arabic loans like selamat and masjid, showing the donor language for each detected borrowing. It runs free in your browser on Gera Tools, with nothing uploaded.

Malay Loanword Detector

Name: Malay Loanword Detector
Creator: Gera Tools
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Modern Malay is a richly layered language. Centuries of trade and Islamic scholarship brought a deep stratum of Arabic loanwords — words like masjid (mosque), kitab (book) and ilmu (knowledge) — while the British colonial era and global technology added a large set of English loanwords such as komputer, telefon and televisyen. This tool scans your text and highlights both kinds of borrowing, labelling each with its donor language.

How it works

The detector tokenises your text and looks each word up (case-insensitively) in a curated dictionary of established Malay loanwords. Every entry is tagged with its source language:

English  → komputer, telefon, televisyen, bas, teksi,
           polis, sains, universiti, motosikal, basikal
Arabic   → selamat, masjid, kitab, ilmu, dunia, waktu,
           syukur, sabar, hakim, fikir

Because it matches against a known list rather than guessing from spelling, the results are conservative and reliable — a word is only flagged when it is a recognised borrowing.

The two main layers of Malay borrowing

Arabic loans (religious and intellectual vocabulary)

Arabic words entered Malay through Islamic scholarship, trade, and the spread of Islam across the Malay archipelago from the 14th century onward. Many Arabic loans have shifted so deeply into everyday Malay that speakers rarely think of them as borrowed. Examples include:

selamat (safe, well) from Arabic salima
masjid (mosque) from Arabic masjid
ilmu (knowledge, science) from Arabic ‘ilm
waktu (time, moment) from Arabic waqt
hakim (judge) from Arabic hakam
dunia (world) from Arabic dunya

Arabic-heavy text usually signals religious, ceremonial, or traditional formal writing.

English loans (technology and modern life)

British colonial administration from the 18th century and the global spread of technology since the 20th century brought a large wave of English words, adapted to Malay phonology:

komputer (computer) — the final r is added to fit Malay syllable structure
telefon (telephone) — the ph becomes f, standard Malay adaptation
televisyen (television)
bas (bus) — shortened and respelled
teksi (taxi) — the -i ending is common in English loans
polis (police) — often mistaken for a native word because it is so established
universiti (university)

English-heavy text in Malay typically signals technical, informal, or contemporary topics.

Worked example

Paste Saya guna komputer di masjid untuk cari ilmu tentang sains and the detector flags:

komputer — English
masjid — Arabic
ilmu — Arabic
sains — English

Native Malay words (saya, guna, di, untuk, cari, tentang) are left unlabelled, giving a clean picture of the text’s borrowed layer.

The proportion of each source language provides a rough register gauge: a high Arabic ratio suggests traditional or religious writing, while a high English ratio points to modern, technical, or casual content. The list covers well-established borrowings; very recent or specialised terms may not be detected yet.