Malay language
| Malay | |
|---|---|
| Bahasa Melayu بهاس ملايو | |
| Pronunciation | [baˈha.sa məˈla.ju] |
| Native to | Brunei, Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Timor-Leste, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Thailand |
| Ethnicity |
|
| Speakers | L1: 82 million (2004–2010)[1] Total (L1 and L2): 290 million (2009)[2] |
Austronesian
| |
Early forms | Old Malay
|
Standard forms | |
| |
Signed forms | Manually Coded Malay |
| Official status | |
Official language in | |
Recognised minority language in |
|
| Regulated by |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | ms |
| ISO 639-2 | may (B) msa (T) |
| ISO 639-3 | msa – inclusive codeIndividual codes: zlm – Malay (individual language)ind – Indonesianzsm – Standard Malayabs – Ambon Malaymbf – Baba Malaypea – Baba Indonesianmhp – Balinese Malaybjn – Banjaresemfb – Bangkabtj – Bacanbew – Betawibve – Beraukxd – Brunei Malayccm – Chetty Malaycoa – Cocos Malayliw – Colgoq – Goraphji – Hajijax – Jambi Malayvkk – Kaurmeo – Kedah Malaymfa – Kelantan-Pattani Malaykvr – Kerincimqg – Kota Bangun Kutaimkn – Kupang Malaymfp – Makassar Malayxmm – Manado Malaymin – Minangkabaumui – Musizmi – Negeri Sembilanmax – North Moluccan Malaypmy – Papuan Malaypel – Pekalmsi – Sabah Malaysci – Sri Lanka Malay languagepse – South Barisan Malayvkt – Tenggarong Kutai Malay |
| Glottolog | nucl1806 |
| Linguasphere | 31-MFA-a |
Areas where Malay is spoken: Indonesia
Malaysia
Singapore and Brunei, where Standard Malay is an official language
East Timor, where Dili Malay is a Malay creole language and Indonesian is used as a working language
Southern Thailand and the Cocos Isl., where other varieties of Malay are spoken | |
Varieties of Malay in Southeast Asia:
Malay language as the majority
Malay language as the minority
Malay-based creole languages | |
Malay (UK: /məˈleɪ/ mə-LAY, US: /ˈmeɪleɪ/ MAY-lay;[9][10] endonym: Bahasa Melayu, Jawi: بهاس ملايو) is an Austronesian language spoken primarily by Malays in several islands of Maritime Southeast Asia and the Malay Peninsula on mainland Asia.[11] The language is an official language of Brunei, Malaysia, and Singapore. Indonesian, a standardized variety of Malay,[3] is the official language of Indonesia and one of the working languages of Timor-Leste. Malay is also spoken as a regional language of ethnic Malays in Indonesia and the southern part of Thailand. Altogether, it is spoken by 60 million people across Maritime Southeast Asia.[12][13]
The language is pluricentric and a macrolanguage, i.e., a group of mutually intelligible speech varieties, or dialect continuum, that have no traditional name in common, and which may be considered distinct languages by their speakers. Several varieties of it are standardized as the national language (bahasa kebangsaan or bahasa nasional) of several nation states with various official names: in Malaysia, it is designated as either Bahasa Melayu ("Malay language") or in some instances, Bahasa Malaysia ("Malaysian language");[14] in Singapore and Brunei, it is called Bahasa Melayu ("Malay language") where it in the latter country refers to a formal standard variety set apart from its own vernacular dialect;[a][15] in Indonesia, an autonomous normative variety called Bahasa Indonesia ("Indonesian language") is designated the bahasa persatuan/pemersatu ("unifying language" or lingua franca) whereas the term "Malay" (bahasa Melayu) refers to vernacular varieties of Malay indigenous to areas of Central to Southern Sumatra and West Kalimantan as the ethnic languages of Malay in Indonesia.[14][b]
Classical 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 Malayic languages. According to Ethnologue 16, several of the Malayic varieties they currently list as separate languages, including the Orang Asli varieties of the Malay Peninsula, are so closely related to standard Malay that they may prove to be dialects. There are also several Malay trade and creole languages (e.g. Ambonese Malay) based on a lingua franca derived from Classical Malay as well as Makassar Malay, which appears to be a mixed language.
- ^ Malay at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
Malay (individual language) at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
Indonesian at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
Standard Malay at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
Ambon Malay at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
Baba Malay at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
Baba Indonesian at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
(Additional references under 'Language codes' in the information box) - ^ Uli, Kozok (10 March 2012). "How many people speak Indonesian". University of Hawaii at Manoa. Retrieved 20 October 2012.
James T. Collins (Bahasa Sanskerta dan Bahasa Melayu, Jakarta: KPG 2009) gives a conservative estimate of approximately 200 million, and a maximum estimate of 250 million speakers of Malay (Collins 2009, p. 17).
- ^ a b Uri Tadmor (2008). "Grammatical borrowing in Indonesian". In Yaron Matras; Jeanette Sakel (eds.). Grammatical Borrowing in Cross-Linguistic Perspective. Walter de Gruyter. p. 301. ISBN 978-3-11-019919-2.
- ^ "Kedah MB defends use of Jawi on signboards". The Star. 26 August 2008. Archived from the original on 29 October 2012.
- ^ Dahlan, H. Abdullah Zaini. Kitabati, Practical Methods for Learning to Read & Write Pegon (Kitabati, Metode Praktis Belajar Membaca & Menulis Pegon). Zaini Press. Accessed April 19, 2023. https://ia903106.us.archive.org/22/items/etaoin/Kitabati.pdf.
- ^ Estuningtiyas, Retna Dwi (2 May 2021). "Rijal Dakwah: KH. Abdullah Syafi'ie (1910-1985)". The International Journal of Pegon: Islam Nusantara Civilization. 5 (1): 81–96. doi:10.51925/inc.v5i01.45. ISSN 2621-4946.
- ^ "Recognition of Bahasa Indonesia as an official language of the General Conference of UNESCO". unesco.org / document no. 42 C/28. Retrieved 20 November 2023.
- ^ "East Timor Languages". East Timor Government. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 30 July 2018.
- ^ Wells, John C. (2008). Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.). Longman. ISBN 978-1-4058-8118-0.
- ^ Jones, Daniel (2011). Roach, Peter; Setter, Jane; Esling, John (eds.). Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary (18th ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-15255-6.
- ^ Lowenberg, Peter (1988). "Malay in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore: Three Faces of a National Language". In Coulmas, Florian (ed.). With Forked Tongues: What are National Languages Good For?. Ann Arbor, MI: Karoma. p. 146–79. ISBN 978-0-89720-084-4.
- ^ 10 million in Malaysia as either "Malay" or "Malaysian", 5 million in Indonesia as "Malay" plus 260 million as "Indonesian", etc.
- ^ Wardhana, Dian Eka Chandra (2021). "Indonesian as the Language of ASEAN During the New Life Behavior Change 2021". Journal of Social Work and Science Education. 1 (3): 266–280. doi:10.52690/jswse.v1i3.114 (inactive 1 July 2025). Retrieved 29 January 2021.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link) - ^ a b Asmah Haji Omar (1992). "Malay as a pluricentric language". In Clyne, Michael J. (ed.). Malay as a pluricentric language Pluricentric Languages: Differing Norms in Different Nations. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyte. pp. 403–4. ISBN 3-11-012855-1.
- ^ See:
- Clynes, Adrian (2001). "Brunei Malay: An Overview". Occasional Papers in Language Studies. 7. Department of English Language and Applied Linguistics, Universiti Brunei Darussalam: 11–2.
- Clynes, Adrian; Deterding, David (2011). "Standard Malay (Brunei)". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 41 (2): 259–268. doi:10.1017/S002510031100017X. ISSN 0025-1003. JSTOR 44527038.
- ^ Blust, Robert (2013). The Austronesian Languages (revised ed.). Australian National University. hdl:1885/10191. ISBN 978-1-922185-07-5.
- ^ Tadmor, Uri (2009). "Malay-Indonesian". In Bernard Comrie (ed.). The World's Major Languages (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. pp. 791–818.
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