Going from Zulu to Malay (Bahasa Melayu) has a composite linguistic distance of 73% (heuristic estimate). Below is the dimension-by-dimension breakdown.
Shared vocabulary, cognates, and loanwords.
Morphology, syntax, word order, cases.
Shared sounds and phoneme inventory.
Latin → Latin/Arabic
Niger-Congo ↔ Austronesian
The 5 languages with the lowest linguistic distance from Zulu:
A quick 3-question check between Zulu and Malay. No signup.