Bicara

Bicara is a native word in Indonesian and Malay that refers to speaking and to a spoken exchange. As a noun, it denotes the act of speaking, a spoken contribution, or a particular instance of speech. As a verb, it appears in forms such as berbicara, meaning “to speak” or “to talk,” while the bare form bicara is commonly used in everyday speech to mean the act of speaking (for example, Saya ingin bicara). Derived nouns include pembicaraan (a talk or discussion) and percakapan (conversation). The phrase bicara tentang or bicara soal is used to mean “talk about” or “discuss.”

The term is neutral in tone and widely used across both informal and formal contexts, including public speaking. Indonesian relies on affix-based morphology for nuance rather than changing the word for tense, so bicara itself does not encode tense or person; context and surrounding words carry those details. In Malay, usage is similar, and speakers understand bicara across both languages.

Related terms include berucap or bercakap (to talk or chat), ucapan (utterance or speech), and percakapan (conversation). See also cakap (to speak) and pembicaraan (a talk or discussion). Bicara thus functions as a versatile core term for spoken communication in Indonesian and Malay.