Abstract
This qualitative study employing comparative analysis method uncovered the similarities and differences of Tagalog, Bahasa Indonesia, and Bahasa Melayu languages in terms of orthographic, phonological and semantic features. The words in Tagalog, Bahasa Indonesia, and Bahasa Melayu languages were used in this study. The findings revealed that Tagalog orthography is a bit complex to understand for it contains more elements than the others. It possesses extra letters that are not present in the other two languages. Further, in terms of phonological features, the Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Melayu languages have an additional /ə/ sound, one will really notice how Tagalog pronunciation is different from the other two languages. This is why when they speak, there is a distinct difference in the stressing of the words because /ə/ are not stressed and are unaspirated. In addition, in terms of semantic features, affixation and reduplication play important roles. While all the three languages make use of prefixes, suffixes and circumfixes, they vary in the morphemes that they use. These morphemes can change the lexical category of the words and are subject to a set of rules unique to each language.
