Malay is a major language of the Austronesian The branches of the Oceanic languages: Admiralties and Yapese St Matthias Western Oceanic & Meso-Melanesian Temotu Southeast Solomons Southern Oceanic Micronesian Fijian-Polynesian The black ovals at the northwestern limit of Micronesian are the Sunda-Sulawesi languages Palauan and Chamorro. The black circles in with the green are offshore family and the official language An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration. However, official status can also be used to give a language a legal status, even if that language is not of Malaysia ^ b. The current terminology as per government policy is Bahasa Malaysia but legislation continues to refer to the official language as Bahasa Melayu (literally Malay language). English may continue to be used for some official purposes under the National Language Act 1967, Brunei Brunei , officially the State of Brunei Darussalam or the Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace (Malay: Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi: بروني دارالسلام), is a sovereign state located on the north coast of the island of Borneo, in Southeast Asia. Apart from its coastline with the South China Sea, it is completely surrounded by the, and Indonesia Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia (Indonesian: Republik Indonesia), is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia comprises 17,508 islands. With a population of around 230 million people, it is the world's fourth most populous country, and has the world's largest population of Muslims. Indonesia is a republic, with an, where in the latter it is standardized A standard language is a particular variety of a language that has prestige within a speech community. Although it will often be originally based on the language of a particular geographical area, such as a capital city or cultural centre, a standard cuts across regional linguistic boundaries to become a general means of communication. The as Indonesian Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries. It is one of four official languages of Singapore Singapore is effectively a multi-lingual nation. Although English is the first language of Singapore, there are also a multitude of other languages spoken in the country that reflect its multi-racial, multi-cultural and multi-lingual society, and as Indonesian is a working language A working language is a language that is given a unique legal status in a supra-national company, society, state or other body or organization as its primary mean of communication. It is primarily the language of the daily correspondence and conversation, since the organization usually has members with various differing language backgrounds of East Timor Timor Leste, also known as East Timor is a state in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the nearby islands of Atauro and Jaco, and Oecusse, an exclave on the northwestern side of the island, within Indonesian West Timor. The small country of 15,410 km² (5,400 sq mi) is located about 640 km (400 mi) northwest of, a consequence of over twenty years of Indonesian administration. It is spoken natively by 40 million people^[5] across the Malacca Strait, including the coasts of the Malay Peninsula The Malay Peninsula or Thai-Malay Peninsula is in Southeast Asia. The land mass runs approximately north-south and, at its teminus, is the southern-most point of the Asian mainland. The area contains territories of Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand of Malaysia and southern Thailand Thailand (pronounced /ˈtaɪlænd/ TYE-land or /ˈtaɪlənd/; Thai: ราชอาณาจักรไทย Ratcha Anachak Thai, IPA: [râːtɕʰa ʔaːnaːtɕɑ̀k tʰɑj]) (formerly Siam Thai: สยาม) is an independent country that lies in the heart of Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos, Riau Riau is a province of Indonesia, located in the center of Sumatra along the Strait of Malacca. The provincial capital and largest city is Pekanbaru. Other major cities includes Dumai, Bagansiapiapi, Bengkalis, Bangkinang, Rengat and Siak Sri Indrapura province, the eastern coast of Sumatra Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia (two larger islands, Borneo and New Guinea, are shared between Indonesia and other countries), and the sixth largest island in the world at approximately 470,000 km² with a population of 45,000,000. Its biggest city is Medan, and the Riau Islands Riau Islands Province (Indonesian: Provinsi Kepulauan Riau is a province of Indonesia, consisting of Riau Archipelago, Natuna Islands, Anambas, and Lingga Islands in Indonesia, as has been established as a native language of Jakarta Jakarta , officially the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of 661 square kilometres (255 sq mi) and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and in and of part of western coastal Sarawak Sarawak is one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo. Known as Bumi Kenyalang ("Land of the Hornbills"), it is situated on the north-west of the island. It is the largest state in Malaysia; the second largest, Sabah, lies to the northeast and Kalimantan In English, the term Kalimantan refers to the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo, while in Indonesian, the term "Kalimantan" refers to the whole island of Borneo. The Indonesian territory makes up 73 percent of the island by area, and 70 percent by population. The non-Indonesian parts of Borneo are of Brunei (609,000) and East in Borneo Borneo is the third largest island in the world, located north of Australia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia. Politically, the island is divided among three countries: Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia. Approximately 73% of the island is Indonesian territory. The Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah (East Malaysia), in the north,. As a second language, it is spoken by an estimated 140 million, mostly under the guise of "Indonesian".^[6]

In Malaysia, the standard language is called Bahasa Malaysia "Malaysian language". In Singapore, Brunei, and southern Thailand it is called Bahasa Melayu "Malay language", and in Indonesia it is generally called Bahasa Indonesia"Indonesian language Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries", though Bahasa Nasional "National Language" and Bahasa Persatuan/Pemersatu "Unifying Language" are also heard. However, in areas of Sumatra and Riau where the language is indigenous, Indonesians refer to it as Bahasa Melayu.

Origin

There are many hypotheses as to where the Malay language originated. One of these is that it came from Sumatra Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia (two larger islands, Borneo and New Guinea, are shared between Indonesia and other countries), and the sixth largest island in the world at approximately 470,000 km² with a population of 45,000,000. Its biggest city is Medan island. The oldest written documents in Malay, dated from the end of the 7th century AD, were found on Bangka Island, off the southeastern coast of Sumatra and in Palembang Palembang is the capital city of South Sumatra Province of Indonesia. It was formerly known as the capital city of the ancient Kingdom of Srivijaya. Srivijaya or Sriwijaya was a powerful ancient Malay kingdom on the island of Sumatra, modern day Indonesia, which influenced much of Southeast Asia. The earliest solid proof of its existence dates in southern Sumatra. "Malayu" was the name of an old kingdom located in Jambi province in eastern Sumatra. It was known in ancient Chinese Chinese or the Sinitic language (汉语／漢語 Hànyǔ; 华语／華語 Huáyǔ; 中文 Zhōngwén) is a language family consisting of languages which are mostly mutually unintelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the two branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages texts as "Mo-lo-yo" and mentioned in the Nagarakertagama, an old Javanese Javanese language is the language of the people in the central and eastern parts of the island of Java, in Indonesia. In addition, there are also some pockets of Javanese speakers in the northern coast of western Java. It is the native language of more than 75,500,000 people epic written in 1365, as one of the "tributary states" of the Majapahit kingdom in eastern Java Java is an island of Indonesia and the site of its capital city, Jakarta. Once the center of powerful Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms, Islamic sultanates, and the core of the colonial Dutch East Indies, Java now plays a dominant role in the economic and political life of Indonesia. Home to a population of 130 million in 2006, it is the most populous.

The use of Malay throughout insular and peninsular Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic and volcanic activity is linked to the rise of Muslim A Muslim or Moslem is an adherent of the religion of Islam. Literally, the word means "one who submits (to God)". Muslim is the participle of the same verb of which Islam is the infinitive. All Muslims observe Sunnah, but differences in the definition of what is and what is not Sunnah has led to the emergence of sectarian movements.[ kingdoms and the spread of Islam Islam (Arabic: الإسلام‎ al-’islām, pronounced [ʔislæːm] [note 1]) is a strictly monotheistic religion articulated by the Qur’an, a text considered by its adherents to be the verbatim word of God (Arabic: الله‎, Allāh), and by the Prophet of Islam Muhammad's teachings and normative example (which is called the Sunnah in, itself a consequence of growing regional trade.

Indonesia pronounced a variety of Malay its official language when it gained independence Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or state in which its residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory, calling it Bahasa Indonesia. However, the language had already been used as the lingua franca A lingua franca is a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both persons' mother tongues throughout the archipelago since the 15th century. Since 1928, nationalists and young people throughout the Indonesian archipelago declared it to be Indonesia's only official language, as proclaimed in the Sumpah Pemuda "Youth Vow." Thus Indonesia was the first country to designate it as an official language. In several parts of Indonesia, in Sumatra Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia (two larger islands, Borneo and New Guinea, are shared between Indonesia and other countries), and the sixth largest island in the world at approximately 470,000 km² with a population of 45,000,000. Its biggest city is Medan and Borneo Borneo is the third largest island in the world, located north of Australia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia. Politically, the island is divided among three countries: Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia. Approximately 73% of the island is Indonesian territory. The Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah (East Malaysia), in the north, Islands, Malay is spoken as local dialect of ethnic Malays.^[7]

In Malaysia, the term Bahasa Malaysia was in use until the 1990s, when most academics and government officials reverted to "Bahasa Melayu," used in the Malay version of the Federal Constitution. According to Article 152 of the Federal Constitution, Malay is the official language of Malaysia ^ b. The current terminology as per government policy is Bahasa Malaysia but legislation continues to refer to the official language as Bahasa Melayu (literally Malay language). English may continue to be used for some official purposes under the National Language Act 1967. "Bahasa Kebangsaan" (National Language) was also used at one point during the 1970s. At present day, the government is referring to the language as Bahasa Malaysia again.^{[citation needed]} Similar to Malaysia in the mid 1990's, "Bahasa Melayu" was defined as Brunei's official language in the country's 1959 Constitution.

Indonesian and Malay are separated by some centuries of different vocabulary development, partly due to the influence of different colonial languages; Dutch Dutch ( Nederlands ) is a West Germanic language spoken by over 22 million people as a native language and over 5 million people as a second language. Most native speakers live in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, with smaller groups of speakers in parts of France, Germany and several former Dutch colonies. It is closely related to other in the case of Indonesia, formerly the Dutch The Netherlands (pronounced /ˈnɛðɚləndz/ ; Dutch: Nederland, pronounced [ˈneːdərlɑnt] ( listen)) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located in North-West Europe. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany East Indies The Dutch East Indies, or Netherlands East Indies, was the Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II. It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the former Dutch East India Company that came under the administration of the Netherlands in 1800. During the nineteenth century, Dutch possessions in the archipelago and its and English English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into South-East Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria. Following the economic, political, military, scientific, cultural, and colonial influence of Great Britain and the United Kingdom from the 18th century, via in the case of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, which were formerly under British The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland[note 7] is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of the island of Ireland, and many small islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK with a land rule The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom, that had originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height it was the largest empire in history and, for over a.

Some Malay dialects The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class. A dialect that is associated, however, show only limited mutual intelligibility In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is recognized as a relationship between languages in which speakers of different but related languages can readily understand each other without intentional study or extraordinary effort. It is sometimes used as one criterion for distinguishing languages from dialects, though sociolinguistic factors are also with the standard language; for example, Kelantanese pronunciation is difficult even for some fellow Malay speakers to understand, while Indonesian Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries contains many words unique to it that are unfamiliar to speakers of Malay (some because of Javanese (bahasa Jawa), Sundanese (bahasa Sunda) or other local language influence, and some because the language has been modified by youngsters).

The language spoken by the Peranakan Peranakan and Baba-Nyonya are terms used for the descendants of late 15th and 16th-century Chinese immigrants to the Nusantara region during the Colonial era. It applies especially to the ethnic Chinese populations of the British Straits Settlements of Malaya and the Dutch-controlled island of Java and other locations, who have adopted partially (Straits Chinese, a hybrid of Chinese settlers from the Ming Dynasty The Ming Dynasty , or Empire of the Great Ming (simplified Chinese: 大明国; traditional Chinese: 大明國; pinyin: Dà Míng Guó, also anachronistically simplified Chinese: 大明帝国; traditional Chinese: 大明帝國; pinyin: Dà Míng Dìguó), was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led and local Malays) is a unique patois Patois is any language that is considered nonstandard, although the term is not formally defined in linguistics. It can refer to pidgins, creoles, dialects, and other forms of native or local speech, but not commonly to jargon or slang, which are vocabulary-based forms of cant. Class distinctions are embedded in the term, drawn between those who of Malay and the Chinese Hokkien Hokkien , also called Fulaohua (simplified Chinese: 福佬话; traditional Chinese: 福佬話; pinyin: Fúlǎohuà; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Hok-ló-oē), or Quanzhou–Zhangzhou[citation needed], is a dialect of Min Nan Chinese spoken in southern Fujian, Taiwan, and by many overseas Chinese throughout Southeast Asia. It is closely related to Teochew, dialect, which is mostly spoken in the former Straits Settlements Originally established in 1826 as part of the territories controlled by the British East India Company, the Straits Settlements came under direct British control as a crown colony on 1 April 1867. The colony was dissolved as part of the British reorganisation of its South-East Asian dependencies following the end of the Second World War of Penang Penang is a state in Malaysia, located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia by the Strait of Malacca. Penang is the second smallest state in Malaysia after Perlis, and the eighth most populous. A resident of Penang is colloquially known as a Penangite and Malacca Malacca is the third smallest Malaysian state, after Perlis and Penang. It is located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, on the Straits of Malacca. It borders Negeri Sembilan to the north and the state of Johor to the south. The capital is Malacca Town. This historical city centre has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 7 in Malaysia, and the Indonesian Archipelago.

History

The history of the Malay language can be divided into five periods: Old Malay, the Transitional Period, the Malacca Period, Late Modern Malay, and modern Malay.

Old Malay is unintelligible to a speaker of modern Malay.^{[citation needed]} It was heavily influenced by Sanskrit Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism and Buddhism[note 1]. Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand, the lingua franca of Hinduism and Buddhism. The earliest known inscription in the Old Malay language was found in Sumatra, written in Pallava variant of Grantha script ^[8] and dates back to 7th century - known as Kedukan Bukit Inscription, it was discovered by the Dutchman M. Batenburg on 29 November 1920, at Kedukan Bukit, South Sumatra, on the banks of the River Tatang, a tributary of the River Musi. It is a small stone of 45 by 80 cm.

The Malay language came into widespread use as the trade language of the Sultanate of Malacca (1402 – 1511). During this period, the Malay language developed rapidly under the influence of Islamic literature. The development changed the nature of the language with massive infusion of Arabic, and Hindi or Sanskrit vocabularies. Under the Sultanate of Malacca the language evolved into a form recognizable to speakers of modern Malay.

Classification and related languages

Malay is a member of the Austronesian family of languages, which includes languages from Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean, with a smaller number in continental Asia. Malagasy, a geographic outlier spoken in Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, is also a member of this linguistic family. Although each language of the family is mutually unintelligible, their similarities are rather striking. Many roots have come virtually unchanged from their common Austronesian ancestor. There are many cognates found in the languages' words for kinship, health, body parts and common animals. Numbers, especially, show remarkable similarities.

Within Austronesian, Malay is part of a cluster of numerous closely related forms of speech known as the Malay languages, which were spread across Malaya and the Indonesian archipelago by Malay traders from Sumatra. There is disagreement as to which varieties of speech popularly called "Malay" should be considered dialects of this language, and which should be classified as distinct Malay languages. The local language of Brunei, Brunei Malay, for example, is not readily unintelligible with the standard language, and the same is true with some varieties on the Malay Peninsula such as Kedah Malay. However, both Brunei and Kedah are quite close.^[9]

The closest relatives of the Malay languages are those left behind on Sumatra, such as Minangkabau with 5½ million speakers on the west coast.

Writing system

Malay is normally written using Latin alphabet called Rumi, although a modified Arabic script called Jawi also exists. Rumi is official in Malaysia and Singapore, and Indonesian has a different official orthography also using the Latin script. Rumi and Jawi are co-official in Brunei. Efforts are currently being undertaken to preserve Jawi script and to revive its use amongst Malays in Malaysia, and students taking Malay language examination in Malaysia have the option of answering questions using Jawi script. The Latin alphabet, however, is still the most commonly used script in Malaysia, both for official and informal purposes.

Historically, Malay has been written using various scripts. Before the introduction of Arabic script in the Malay region, Malay was written using Pallava, Kawi and Rencong script and these are still in use today by the Champa Malay in Vietnam and Cambodia. Old Malay was written using Pallava and Kawi script, as evident from several inscription stones in the Malay region. Starting from the era of kingdom of Pasai and throughout the golden age of the Sultanate of Malacca, Jawi gradually replaced these scripts as the most commonly used script in the Malay region. Starting from the 17th century, under Dutch and British influence, Jawi was gradually replaced by the Rumi script.^[10]

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