empat (Indonesian)
Where does "empat" come from?
The Indonesian word "empat," meaning four, traces its lineage back to the ancient Proto-Austronesian word "*Səpat." Over millennia, it evolved through Proto-Malayo-Polynesian and Proto-Malayic stages, where a regular linguistic process inserted a nasal sound before the final consonant. This ancient root ultimately stabilized into the modern Malay form before being inherited by the Indonesian language.
Full etymology tree
- empat (Indonesian), 'four'
- inherited empat (Malay), 'four'
- inherited *əmpat (Proto-Malayic), 'four'
- inherited *əpat (Proto-Malayo-Polynesian), 'four'
- inherited *həpat (Proto-Malayo-Polynesian)
- inherited *Səpat (Proto-Austronesian), 'four'
- inherited *həpat (Proto-Malayo-Polynesian)
- inherited *əpat (Proto-Malayo-Polynesian), 'four'
- inherited *əmpat (Proto-Malayic), 'four'
- inherited empat (Malay), 'four'
Ancestors
- empat (Malay)
- *əmpat (Proto-Malayic)
- *əpat (Proto-Malayo-Polynesian)
- *Səpat (Proto-Austronesian)
Descendants and derived words
- empat mata (Indonesian)
- empat mata (Indonesian)
- empat mata (Indonesian)
- perempatan (Indonesian)
- seperempat (Indonesian)
Updated July 2026
Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris