Indonesian is the official and national language of Indonesia. It is a standardized variety of Malay, an Austronesian language that has been used as a lingua franca in the multilingual Indonesian archipelago for centuries. With over 280 million inhabitants, Indonesia ranks as the fourth most populous nation globally. The majority of its population predominantly communicates in Indonesian, making it the largest language by number of speakers in Southeast Asia and one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. Indonesian vocabulary has been influenced by various regional languages such as Javanese, Sundanese, Minangkabau, Balinese, Banjarese, and Buginese, as well as by foreign languages such as Arabic, Dutch, Portuguese, and English. Many borrowed words have been adapted to fit the phonetic and grammatical rules of Indonesian, enriching the language and reflecting Indonesia's diverse linguistic heritage.
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 Thailand. Altogether, it is spoken by 290 million people across Maritime Southeast Asia.
Jawi is a writing system used for writing several languages of Southeast Asia, such as Acehnese, Malay, Mëranaw, Minangkabau, Tausūg, and Ternate. Jawi is based on the Arabic script, consisting of all 31 original Arabic letters, six letters constructed to fit phonemes native to Malay, and one additional phoneme used in foreign loanwords, but not found in Classical Arabic, which are ca, nga, pa, ga, va, and nya.
There are some 130 to 195 languages spoken in the Philippines, depending on the method of classification. Almost all are Malayo-Polynesian languages native to the archipelago. A number of Spanish-influenced creole varieties generally called Chavacano along with some local varieties of Chinese are also spoken in certain communities. The 1987 constitution designates Filipino, a standardized version of Tagalog, as the national language and an official language along with English. Filipino is regulated by Commission on the Filipino Language and serves as a lingua franca used by Filipinos of various ethnolinguistic backgrounds.
Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, abbreviated DBP, is the government body responsible for coordinating the use of the Malay language and Malay-language literature in Malaysia.
Penang Sign Language was developed in Malaysia by deaf children, outside the classroom, when oralism was predominant. It is now mainly used by older people, although many younger people can understand it.
Malaysian Sign Language is the principal language of the deaf community of Malaysia. It is also the official sign language used by the Malaysian government to communicate with the deaf community and was officially recognised by the Malaysian government in 2008 as a means to officially communicate with and among the deaf, particularly on official broadcasts and announcements. BIM has many dialects, differing from state to state.
Malaysian Malay, also known as Standard Malay, Bahasa Malaysia, or simply Malay, is a standardized form of the Malay language used in Malaysia and also used in Brunei and Singapore. 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 Malaysian Malay are two standardised varieties of the Malay language, the former used officially in Indonesia and the latter in Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore. 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.
e-pek@k is a project that facilitates the usage of information and communication technologies to provide the services for the hearing impaired community in Malaysia.
The Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM), or the Malaysian Certificate of Education, is a national examination sat for by all fifth-form secondary school students in Malaysia. It is the equivalent of the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) of England, Wales and Northern Ireland; the Nationals 4/5 of Scotland; and the GCE Ordinary Level of the Commonwealth of Nations. It is the leaving examination of the eleventh grade of schooling.
Bahasa Rojak or Rojak language is a Malaysian pidgin formed by code-switching among two or more of the many languages of Malaysia. Bahasa means "language", while rojak means "mixture" in Malay, and is a local food of the same name.
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.
Greater Indonesia was an irredentist political concept that sought to bring the so-called Malay race together, by uniting the territories of the Dutch East Indies with British Malaya and British Borneo. It was espoused by students and graduates of Sultan Idris Training College for Malay Teachers in the late 1920s, and individuals from Sumatra and Java, including Mohammad Natsir and Sukarno, on 28 September 1950. Indonesia Raya was adopted as the name of what later became the Indonesian national anthem in 1924.
Indonesian Sign Language is any of several related deaf sign languages of Indonesia, at least on the island of Java. It is based on American Sign Language, with local admixture in different cities. Although presented as a coherent language when advocating for recognition by the Indonesian government and use in education, the varieties used in different cities may not be mutually intelligible.
The indigenous languages of Malaysia belong to the Mon-Khmer and Malayo-Polynesian families. The national, or official, language is Malay which is the mother tongue of the majority Malay ethnic group. The main ethnic groups within Malaysia are the Malay people, Han Chinese people and Tamil people, with many other ethnic groups represented in smaller numbers, each with its own languages. The largest native languages spoken in East Malaysia are the Iban, Dusunic, and Kadazan languages. English is widely understood and spoken within the urban areas of the country; the English language is a compulsory subject in primary and secondary education. It is also the main medium of instruction within most private colleges and private universities. English may take precedence over Malay in certain official contexts as provided for by the National Language Act, especially in the states of Sabah and Sarawak, where it may be the official working language. Furthermore, the law of Malaysia is commonly taught and read in English, as the unwritten laws of Malaysia continue to be partially derived from pre-1957 English common law, which is a legacy of past British colonisation of the constituents forming Malaysia. In addition, authoritative versions of constitutional law and statutory law are continuously available in both Malay and English.
Sarawak Malay is a Malayic language native to the State of Sarawak. It is a common language used by natives of Sarawak and also as the important mother tongue for the Sarawakian Malay people.
In South Africa, manually coded language is used in education, as a bridge between South African Sign Language (SASL) and the eleven official oral languages of the country. These codes apply the signs of SASL to the grammar of the oral languages, resulting in Signed English, Signed Afrikaans, Signed Xhosa, Signed Zulu, etc. They are not a natural form of communication among deaf people.
American Sign Language (ASL) developed in the United States, starting as a blend of local sign languages and French Sign Language (FSL). Local varieties have developed in many countries, but there is little research on which should be considered dialects of ASL and which have diverged to the point of being distinct languages.
