Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that can help answer the question.
Query: What language family is Malay?
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 language family. Although each language of the family is mutually unintelligible, their similarities are rather striking. Many roots have come virtually unchanged from their common ancestor, Proto-Austronesian language. There are many cognates found in the languages' words for kinship, health, body parts and common animals. Numbers, especially, show remarkable similarities.
There are nine languages which are indigenous to the Minahasan peninsula. All languages belong to the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family, and five of these (Tondano, Tombulu, Tonsea, Tontemboan, and Tonsawang) comprise the Minahasan microgroup, while three (Bantik, Toratan, and Sangir) are part of the Sangiric group. Another language (Ponosakan) is considered moribund and is part of the Gorontalo-Mongondow microgroup. The language of wider communication is Manado Malay (also known as "Minahasa Malay"), a Malay-based creole which contains numerous loan words from Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch - a result of contact with European powers from 1523 onwards. While Manado Malay bears some similarity with other varieties of Malay spoken in eastern Indonesia, it also displays a number of differences.
Standard Malay, also called Court Malay, was the literary standard of the pre-colonial Malacca and Johor Sultanates, and so the language is sometimes called Malacca, Johor or Riau Malay (or various combinations of those names) to distinguish it from the various other Malayan languages. According to Ethnologue 16, several of the Malayan varieties they currently list as separate languages, including the Orang Asli varieties of Peninsular Malay, are so closely related to standard Malay that they may prove to be dialects. There are also several Malay trade and creole languages which are based on a lingua franca derived from Classical Malay as well as Macassar Malay, which appears to be a mixed language.
In the three southernmost border provinces, the vast majority of the local Muslim population is predominantly Malay, amounting to about 80 percent of the region's population. Thai Malays speak Kelantan-Pattani Malay, which is in a different language family entirely than the Thai language. This adds to the culturally unique identity of Thai Malay Muslims.
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, however English may take preference in many settings and is spoken by the majority of the population. The main ethnic groups within Malaysia comprise the Malays, Chinese and Indians, 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 the Kadazan languages. English is widely understood and spoken in service industries and is a compulsory subject in primary and secondary school. It is also the main language spoken in most private colleges and 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.
The indigenous languages of Sabah can be divided into four language families, i.e. Dusunic, Murutic, Paitanic and Sama–Bajau. Studies suggest that the only truly Bornean languages spoken in Sabah are those belonging to the Dusunic, Murutic and Paitanic language families while the Sama–Bajau languages originate from the southern Philippines. The Dusunic is the largest of the four families. It comprises the Kadazan Dusun language, which has dialects spread throughout the districts of Papar, Penampang, Kota Kinabalu, Tuaran, Ranau, Tambunan and Keningau. It is followed by the Murutic languages of southern Sabah, which are spoken mainly in Keningau, Tenom, Nabawan and Pensiangan. The Paitanic languages are spoken in the areas along the east coast rivers of Paitan, Kinabatangan and Segama. The Sama–Bajau are concentrated along parts of the West and East Coasts. Malay language is taught as the main language for conversation across different ethnicities in the state, although Sabahan creole is different from Sarawak Malay and Peninsular Malay. Sabah has its own slang for Malay which originated either from indigenous words, Brunei Malay, Suluk, Cocos Malay and Indonesian language.
In Indonesia, however, there is a clear distinction between "Malay language" ("bahasa Melayu") and "Indonesian" ("bahasa Indonesia"). Indonesian is the national language which serves as the unifying language of Indonesia; despite being a standardized form of Malay, it is not referred to with the term "Malay" in common parlance. The term "Malay" is usually reserved for the forms of Malay indigenous to the Malay ethnic group (the national standardized language of Malaysia and the non-standard idioms of Malay people, including those used by Malay Indonesians). Thus, "Malay" is considered a regional language ("bahasa daerah") in Indonesia, enjoying the same status as e.g. Javanese, Sundanese, Buginese, Balinese, Batak languages and others. Moreover, to some Indonesians, the term "Malay" is more often associated with Malaysia and the Malaysian variety of Malay..
Spoken since the 16th century by descendents of Tamil merchants of the Malacca Straits. It may be historically related to Sri Lanka Creole Malay. The current language status is moribund, due to inter-marriage and out-migration. There has been language shift towards Malay instead.
The Sri Lankan Creole Malay language is a unique mixture of the Sinhalese language and the Tamil language with Malay. Sri Lanka Malay (SLM) is a restructured vernacular of Malay base spoken by at least five different communities in Sri Lanka which has evolved to be significantly divergent from other varieties of Malay due to intimate contact with the dominant languages of Sinhala and Tamil. The Malays in Sri Lanka, whose ancestry include labourers brought by the Dutch and British, as well as soldiers in the Dutch garrison, now constitute 0.3% of the population, numbering some 46,000. It is spoken exclusively by the Malay ethnic minority in Sri Lanka.
The Malay-speaking community also faced similar problems after the implementation of the policy. In Singapore, Malay, not its non-standard dialects, is valued as a mean for transmitting familial and religious values. For instance, ‘Madrasahs', or religious schools, mosques and religious classes all employ the Malay language. However, Malay in turn is facing competition from the increased popularity of English.
Ancient Malaysian and Indonesian cultures and civilizations in ancient Malaya, Sumatra and Java influenced the history, lifestyles, and culture of the Filipino peoples. The Malay language, along with Philippine languages belonging to the Malayo-Polynesian language family, has also had an immense influence on many languages spoken in the Philippines. This is because Old Malay used to be the lingua franca throughout the archipelago, a good example of this is Magellan's translator Enrique using Malay to converse with the native "Sugbuanon" (Cebuano) during this time period.
Malay is the main language spoken in the state, although with a different creole from Sarawak Malay and Peninsular Malay. The state has its own slang for Malay which originated either from indigenous words, Brunei Malay, Suluk, Cocos Malay and Indonesian language. The indigenous languages of Sabah can be divided into four language families of Dusunic, Murutic, Paitanic and Sama–Bajau. As the Hakka forms the majority of Chinese in Sabah, the Hakka dialect is the most commonly spoken Chinese dialect in the state apart from Cantonese and Hokkien dialects.
Malay (/məˈleɪ/;[5] Malay: Bahasa Melayu بهاس ملايو‎) is a major language of the Austronesian family spoken in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. A language of the Malays, it is spoken by 290 million people[6] across the Strait of Malacca, including the coasts of the Malay Peninsula of Malaysia and the eastern coast of Sumatra in Indonesia, and has been established as a native language of part of western coastal Sarawak and West Kalimantan in Borneo. It is also used as a trading language in the southern Philippines, including the southern parts of the Zamboanga Peninsula, the Sulu Archipelago, and the southern predominantly Muslim-inhabited municipalities of Bataraza and Balabac in Palawan.
Sumatra is the homeland of the Malay languages, which today spans all corners of Insular Southeast Asia. The Indonesian language which is the country's official language and lingua franca was based on Riau-Lingga (or Johor-Riau) Malay. The Malay language has a long history, which has a literary record as far back as the 7th century AD. A famous early Malay inscription, the Kedukan Bukit Inscription, 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. It is written in Old Malay, a possible ancestor of today's Malay language and its variants. Most Malay languages and dialects spoken in Indonesia are mutually unintelligible to Standard Indonesian. The most widely spoken are Palembang Malay (3.2 million), Jambi Malay (1 million), Bengkulu Malay (1.6 million) and Banjarese (4 million) (although not considered to be a dialect of Malay by its speakers; its minor dialect is typically called Bukit Malay). Besides the proper Malay languages, there are several languages closely related to Malay such as Minangkabau, Kerinci, Kubu and others. These languages are closely related to Malay, but their speakers do not consider their languages to be Malay. There are many Malay-based creoles spoken in the country especially in eastern Indonesia due to contacts from the western part of Indonesia and during colonial rule where Malay replaced Dutch as a lingua franca. The most well-known Malay creoles in Indonesia are Ambonese Malay, Betawi, Manado Malay and Papuan Malay.
Pahang Malays (Malaysian: "Melayu Pahang", Pahang Malay: "Oghang Pahang", Jawi: أورڠ ڤهڠ) are a sub-group of Malay people native to the state of Pahang, in the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia. With population of approximately 1.08 million people, they constitutes 70% of Pahang state's population, making them the dominant ethnic group in the state. Their language, Pahang Malay is one of many Malayan languages spoken in the region that belong to the Malayo-Polynesian group of Austronesian family.
Due to the huge proximity between the Minangkabau language and Malay, there is some controversy regarding the relationship between the two. Some see Minangkabau as a nonstandardized dialect of Malay, while others think of Minangkabau as a proper (Malay) language.
Besides Indonesia, Minangkabau is also spoken in Malaysia, by some descendants of migrants from the Minang-speaking region in Sumatra ("Ranah Minang", "Tanah Minang", or Land of the Minang). Significant numbers of the early migrants settled in what is now the Malaysian state of Negeri Sembilan; this "Negeri Sembilan Malay" is known as "Bahaso Nogori / Baso Nogoghi". More recent immigrants are known as "Minang".
Currently, the status and development of the Malay language in Singapore is overseen by the Malay Language Council of Singapore (Majlis Bahasa Melayu Singapura), which was first established in April 1981. In addition to standardising Malay spelling in Singapore, the council also promotes the usage of the Malay language through the Malay Language Month (Bulan Bahasa Melayu Singapura), first introduced in 1962. The Malay Language Month aims to ensure the continuity of the language as a strong part of the Malay heritage through activities like performances, competitions, and workshops. It also aims to encourage the use of the language in the daily lives of its native speakers. This is a way to ensure that the language retains its relevance in the society for generations to come.
Indonesian is one of the many varieties of Malay. Malay historical linguists agree on the likelihood of the Malay homeland being in western Borneo stretching to the Bruneian coast. A form known as Proto-Malay language was spoken in Borneo at least by 1000 BCE and was, it has been argued, the ancestral language of all subsequent Malayan languages. Its ancestor, Proto-Malayo-Polynesian, a descendant of the Proto-Austronesian language, began to break up by at least 2000 BCE, possibly as a result of the southward expansion of Austronesian peoples into Maritime Southeast Asia from the island of Taiwan. Indonesian, which originated from 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; the Philippines national language, Filipino; and the native language of New Zealanders, Māori language are also members of this language family. Although each language of the family is mutually unintelligible, their similarities are rather striking. Many roots have come virtually unchanged from their common ancestor, Proto-Austronesian language. There are many cognates found in the languages' words for kinship, health, body parts and common animals. Numbers, especially, show remarkable similarities.
The Malay language in Indonesia and Malaysia also differs in recognition, where in Malaysia it enjoys status as the national language (Malaysian language), while in Indonesia it is considered as a regional language in Malay-speaking areas such as the eastern coast of Sumatra and West Kalimantan. The term "Malay language" ("Bahasa Melayu") in Indonesia and Malaysia invites different perceptions from its respective people. To Malaysians, the Malay language is generally understood as the national language of Malaysia, with Malaysian language ("Bahasa Malaysia)" being a precise appellation for the Malay variety used in the country. Between 1986 and 2007, the term "Bahasa Melayu" was used instead of "Bahasa Malaysia", until the latter was reinstated, in order to instill a sense of belonging among Malaysians of all races, rather than just Malays. Therefore, there was no clear distinction between the use of the term Malay ("Bahasa Melayu") and the national language of Malaysia ("Bahasa Malaysia"). In Brunei, where Malay is also an official language, the language is known as "Bahasa Melayu" and in English as "Malay".
Kelantanese–Pattani Malay is distinct enough that radio broadcasts in Standard Malay cannot be understood easily by native speakers of Kelantanese–Pattani Malay who are not taught the standard language, for example, those in Thailand. Unlike Malaysia where Standard Malay is compulsory in the school curriculum, no one is required to learn Standard Malay in Thailand, and so there is potentially less language influence from standard Malay but potentially more from Thai. It is different also from Kedah Malay, Pahang Malay and Terengganuan Malay, but those languages have close similarities with the Kelantanese-Pattani Malay language especially Terengganuan just differ in pronunciation and some words.
The battle to uphold the Malay Language as the national language raged on in 1968, Prof. al-Attas, as a member of the GERAKAN, engaged in a debate with Lim Kit Siang and the Opposition from the Democratic Action Party (DAP)6 on the subject matter of Indonesian literature being made as part of the corpus of Malay Language literature, and on the idea of a Malaysian Malaysia. Responding towards Lim Kit Siang’s claim that making the Malay Language the national language is racist and chauvinistic, Prof al-Attas, argued that Malays cannot be accused as racist because a Chinese who becomes a Muslim and speaks the Malay Language can be considered a Malay. A Malay, however, can never be a Chinese. By this definition, however, a Malay that renounces Islam is no longer a Malay.
The Malay language is one of the major languages of the world and of the Austronesian family. Variants and dialects of Malay are used as an official language in Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. The language is also spoken in Thailand, Cocos Islands, Christmas Island, Sri Lanka. It is spoken natively by approximately 33 million people throughout the Malay Archipelago and is used as a second language by an estimated 220 million.
Article 160 defines a Malay as someone born to a Malaysian citizen who professes to be a Muslim, habitually speaks the Malay language, adheres to Malay customs and is domiciled in Malaysia, Singapore or Brunei. This definition is perceived by some writers as loose enough to include people of a variety of ethnic backgrounds which basically can be defined as "Malaysian Muslims" and therefore differs from the anthropological understanding of what constitutes an ethnic Malay. However, there exist Muslim communities in Malaysia with distinctive cultures and spoken languages, that cannot be categorised constitutionally as Malay. This include Muslim communities that have not fully embraced the Malayness like Tamil Muslims and Chinese Muslims.
The Malay peninsula, now an important part of Malaysia, has been the stronghold of Malay sultanates for centuries. As the entire peninsular was consolidated under Melaka's rule in the 15th century, it became the core of the Malay world since then, thus earning its name "Tanah Melayu" ("Malay land") in Malay language. The traditional institutions of sultanates in the peninsula survived the colonisation, and were incorporated into the blueprints of the modern state in 1948. Ultimately, Malay rulers remained at the highest hierarchical order of the society, in accordance with what commonly referred as "Ketuanan Melayu" ("Malay supremacy").
Malayness has been conceived as fundamental basis for state's ideology and it became the main driving force for Malay nationalism in a struggle against British colonisation. The state itself is largely organised around the idea of maintaining the special status of Malays as the first among equals of the "Bumiputra" communities. The historical identification of the Malays with Islam was entrenched in the Article 160 of the Constitution of Malaysia. The article defines specifically a "Malay" as a person who professes the religion of Islam, habitually speaks the Malay language and conforms to Malay custom. The Malaysian government also has taken the step of defining Malaysian Culture through the 1971 National Culture Policy, which defined what was considered official culture, basing it around Malay culture and integrating Islamic influences. The government has historically made little distinction between "Malay culture" and "Malaysian culture".
Within Austronesian, Malay is part of a cluster of numerous closely related forms of speech known as the Malayan 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 vernacular of Brunei—Brunei Malay—for example, is not readily intelligible 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.[13]
During the first "Kongres Pemuda" of Indonesia held in 1926, in the "Sumpah Pemuda", Malay language was proclaimed as the unifying language for the nation of Indonesia. In 1945, the language which later renamed "Bahasa Indonesia" in 1928 became the national language as enshried in the constitution of an independent Indonesia. Later in 1957, Malay language was elevated to the status of national language for the independent Federation of Malaya (later reconstituted as Malaysia in 1963). Then in 1959, Malay language also received the status of national language in Brunei, although it only ceased to become a British protectorate in 1984. When Singapore separated from Malaysia in 1965, Malay became the national language of the new republic and one of the four official languages. The emergence of these newly independent states paved the way for a broader and widespread use of Malay (or Indonesian) in government administration and education. Colleges and universities with Malay as their primary medium of instructions were introduced and bloomed as the prominent centres for researches and production of new intellectual writings in Malay. After East Timor independence, Indonesian language become one of the working languages.