Malay is an Austronesian language that is an official language of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, and that is also spoken in East Timor and parts of the Philippines and Thailand. Altogether, it is spoken by 290 million people across Maritime Southeast Asia.
Malays are an Austronesian ethnic group native to eastern Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula and coastal Borneo, as well as the smaller islands that lie between these locations — areas that are collectively known as the Malay world. These locations are today part of the countries of Malaysia, Indonesia, southern part of Thailand, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam.
Malaysian Malay, also known as Standard Malay, BahasaMalaysia, or simply Malay, is a standardized form of the Malay language used in Malaysia. Malaysian Malay is standardized from the Johore-Riau dialect of Malay. It is spoken by much of the Malaysian population, although most learn a vernacular form of Malay or another native language first. Malay is a compulsory subject in primary and secondary schools.
Indonesian and Standard Malay are two standardised varieties of the Malay language, used officially in Indonesia on one hand and in Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore on the other. Both varieties are generally mutually intelligible, yet there are noticeable differences in spelling, grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary, as well as the predominant source of loanwords. The differences can range from those mutually unintelligible with one another, to those having a closer familial resemblance. The regionalised and localised varieties of Malay can become a catalyst for intercultural conflict, especially in higher education.
Kelantan-Pattani Malay is an Austronesian language of the Malayic subfamily spoken in the Malaysian state of Kelantan and the neighbouring southernmost provinces of Thailand. It is the primary spoken language of Thai Malays, but is also used as a lingua franca by ethnic Southern Thais in rural areas, Muslim and non-Muslim and the Sam-Sam, a mostly Thai-speaking population of mixed Malay and Thai ancestry.
Malay was first used in the first millennia known as Old Malay, a part of the Austronesian language family. Over a period of two millennia, Malay has undergone various stages of development that derived from different layers of foreign influences through international trade, religious expansion, colonisation and developments of new socio-political trends. The oldest form of Malay is descended from the Proto-Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by the earliest Austronesian settlers in Southeast Asia. This form would later evolve into Old Malay when Indian cultures and religions began penetrating the region, most probably using the Kawi and Rencong scripts, some linguistic researchers say. Old Malay contained some terms that exist today, but are unintelligible to modern speakers, while the modern language is already largely recognisable in written Classical Malay of 1303 CE.
Terengganu Inscription Stone is a granite stele carrying Classical Malay inscription in Jawi script that was found in Terengganu, Malaysia. The inscription, dated possibly to 702 AH, constituted the earliest evidence of Jawi writing in the Malay world of Southeast Asia, and was one of the oldest testimonies to the advent of Islam as a state religion in the region. It contains the proclamation issued by a ruler of Terengganu known as Seri Paduka Tuan, urging his subjects to extend and uphold Islam and providing 10 basic Sharia laws for their guidance.
Malaysian Malays are Malaysians of Malay ethnicity whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in the Malay world. In 2015 population estimate, with the total population of 15.7 million, Malaysian Malays form 50.8% of Malaysia's demographics, the largest ethnic group in the country. They can be broadly classified into two main categories; Anak Jati and Anak Dagang.
The modern Malay or Indonesian alphabet, consists of the 26 letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet. It is the more common of the two alphabets used today to write the Malay language, the other being Jawi. The Latin Malay alphabet is the official Malay script in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, while it is co-official with Jawi in Brunei.
Hamza is a letter in the Arabic alphabet, representing the glottal stop. Hamza is not one of the 28 "full" letters and owes its existence to historical inconsistencies in the standard writing system. It is derived from the Arabic letter ʿAyn. In the Phoenician and Aramaic alphabets, from which the Arabic alphabet is descended, the glottal stop was expressed by alif (𐤀), continued by Alif in the Arabic alphabet. However, Alif was used to express both a glottal stop and also a long vowel. In order to indicate that a glottal stop is used, and not a mere vowel, it was added to Alif diacritically. In modern orthography, hamza may also appear on the line, under certain circumstances as though it were a full letter, independent of an Alif.
Tan Sri Zainal Abidin bin Ahmad or better known by the moniker Za'aba, was a Malaysian writer and linguist. He modernised the Malay language with the publication of a series of grammar books entitled Pelita Bahasa in 1936 at the Sultan Idris Training College. The book contained guidelines in modernising the structure of classical Malay language, transforming it into the Malay language that is in use today. The most important change was in syntax, from the classical passive form to the modern active form.
Baju Kurung is a traditional costume of Malays and traditionally worn by women in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and southern Thailand. This type of traditional costume is the national dress of Brunei and Malaysia. In Indonesia, it is also one of the regional dresses, seen most on the island of Sumatra, where many ethnic Malay and Minangkabau women wear it.
Pegon is a modified Arabic script used to write the Javanese, Sundanese, and Madurese languages, as an alternative to the Latin script or the Javanese script and the old Sundanese script. In particular, it was used for religious (Islamic) writing and poetry from the fifteenth century, particularly in writing commentaries of the Qur'an. Pegon includes symbols for sounds that are not present in Modern Standard Arabic. Pegon has been studied far less than its Jawi counterpart which is used for Malay, Acehnese and Minangkabau.
This article explains the phonology of Malay and Indonesian based on the pronunciation of Standard Malay, which is the official language of Brunei, Singapore and Malaysia and Indonesian which is the official language of Indonesia and a working language in Timor Leste. Bruneian Standard Malay and Malaysian Standard Malay follow the Johor-Riau Pronunciation, while Singaporean Standard Malay and Indonesian follow the Baku Pronunciation.
Joint Rumi Spelling is the most recent spelling reform of the Latin-derived Rumi script, used to write the Malay language. The spelling reform was jointly initiated by the governments of Malaysia and Indonesia, and it was adopted in 1972 to officially replace the Za'aba Spelling that was previously standard in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei.
Pahang Malay is a Malayic language spoken in the Malaysian state of Pahang. It is regarded as the dominant Malay dialect spoken along the vast riverine systems of Pahang, but co-exists with other Malay dialects traditionally spoken in the state. Along the coastline of Pahang, Terengganu Malay is spoken in a narrow strip of sometimes discontiguous fishing villages and towns. Another dialect spoken in Tioman island is a distinct Malay variant and most closely related to Riau Archipelago Malay subdialect spoken in Natuna and Anambas islands in the South China Sea, together forming a dialect continuum between the Bornean Malay and the Mainland Peninsular/Sumatran Malay.
Riau Malays is a Malays sub-ethnic originating from the Riau and Riau Islands province. The main areas of the Riau Malays are on the east coast of Riau, mostly in Bengkalis, Indragiri Hulu, Kampar, and the Pekanbaru City area which was the base of the Malay Kingdom in the past. The Riau Malays are famous for Riau Malay Literature which is well applied in rhymes, syair, gurindam, hikayat, karmina, seloka, traditional poems, local proverbs, mantras, and romance stories, as well as other forms of expression which they use to express their feelings.
The Congress Spelling System is a spelling reform of Malay Rumi Script introduced during the third Malay Congress held in Johor Bahru and Singapore in 1956. The main characteristics of the system are the use of symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet, going by the dictum of one symbol for one phoneme, and the new proposition in the writing of diphthongs.
The Za'aba Spelling was the second major spelling reform of Malay Rumi Script introduced in 1924. The reform was devised by Zainal Abidin Ahmad or better known by the moniker Za'aba, a notable writer and linguist at Sultan Idris Teachers College. Za'aba's orthographic system principally dealt with the assignment of vowels in closed syllables, distinguished the schwa from the half-open vowel /e/ by a new grapheme ⟨ě⟩, and insisted on the use of hyphens to differentiate affixes or post-positional emphases from the infinitives. The system as devised by Za'aba emphasised the importance to represent the original pronunciation of Johor-Riau Malay, where various modern standards of Malay were derived, that he viewed as the most elegant form of Malay.
Béka Melayu, Cakap Melayu, Lidah Melayu or Tuturan Melayu is a linguistic purism of Malay language based on the Austronesian language group, especially the Malayic branches. This project is newly created by native cyberspace users on the Internet. It is also less known as Melayu jati or Melayu tulen which means "pure Malay". Among the most significant foreign contributors to Malay vocabulary are Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Hindi, Siamese, Tamil, English, Portuguese, Chinese and Japanese, while Dutch is most spotted in Indonesian.
