<p>Speech segmentation is an important part for speech recognition, synthesizing and coding. Statistical based approach detects segmentation points via computing spectral distortion of the signal without prior knowledge of the acoustic information proved to be able to give good match, less omission but lot of insertion. In this study the segmentation is done both manually and automatically using Malay words in traditional Malay poetry. This study proposed a hybrid method of Brandt’s generalized likelihood ratio (GLR) and short-term energy algorithm. The Brandt’s algorithm tries to estimate the abrupt change in energy to determine the segmentation points. A total of five Pantun are used in read mode and spoken by one male student in a noise free room. Experiments are conducted to see the the accuracy, insertion, and omission of the segmentation points. Experimental results show on average 80% accuracy with 0.2 second time tolerance for automatic segmentation with the algorithm having no knowledge of the acoustic characteristics<em>. </em></p>