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{{About|the language which forms the basis of standard Indonesian and Malaysian|the different Malay variants and dialects|Malay languages}}
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official languageAn 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...
of Malaysia (as MalaysianMalaysian or Standard Malay is the official language of Malaysia and a standardized form of the Malay language of the Austronesian family. It is over 80% cognate with Indonesian and is spoken natively by over 10 million people...
), IndonesiaIndonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
(as IndonesianIndonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....
), BruneiBrunei , officially the State of Brunei Darussalam or the Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace , is a sovereign state located on the north coast of the island of Borneo, in Southeast Asia...
(as Melayu BruneiMelayu Brunei is the official standardized form of the Malay language used in Brunei. It is also spoken as lingua franca in some parts of East Malaysia such as Federal Territory of Labuan, District of Limbang and Lawas and District of Sipitang, Beaufort, Kuala Penyu and Papar . It is spoken by...
) and Singapore (as the national language and one of four official languages of Singapore). It is spoken natively by 40 million people across the Malacca Strait, including the coasts of the Malay PeninsulaThe Malay Peninsula or Thai-Malay Peninsula is a peninsula in Southeast Asia. The land mass runs approximately north-south and, at its terminus, is the southern-most point of the Asian mainland...
of Malaysia and southern ThailandThailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, the eastern coast of SumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
, and the Riau Islands in Indonesia, and has been established as a native language of part of western coastal SarawakSarawak is one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo. Known as Bumi Kenyalang , Sarawak is situated on the north-west of the island. It is the largest state in Malaysia followed by Sabah, the second largest state located to the North- East.The administrative capital is Kuching, which...
and West KalimantanWest Kalimantan is a province of Indonesia. It is one of four Indonesian provinces in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo. Its capital city Pontianak is located right on the Equator....
in BorneoBorneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
.
In Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, southern Thailand, and the southern Philippines it is called Bahasa Melayu "Malay language", and in Indonesia it has undergone a series of standardizations and modifications to form what is now called Bahasa Indonesia, "Indonesian languageIndonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....
", and furthermore designated as Bahasa Nasional "National Language" and Bahasa Persatuan/Pemersatu "Unifying Language/Lingua FrancaLingua Franca was an American magazine about intellectual and literary life in academia.-Founding:The magazine was founded in 1990 by Jeffrey Kittay, an editor and Professor of French Literature at Yale University...
". However, in areas of central to southern SumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
(mainly Riau) where the language is indigenous, Indonesians refer to it as Bahasa Melayu and designate it as one of their regional languages.
Origin
There are many hypotheses as to where the Malay language originated. One of these is that it came from SumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
island. The oldest inscriptions in Malay, dating from the end of the 7th century AD, were found on Bangka IslandBangka is an island lying east of Sumatra, Indonesia. Population 626,955. Area: c.4,600 sq mi .There is an additional small island named Pulau Bangka in northern Sulawesi, Indonesia.-Geography:...
, off the southeastern coast of Sumatra (the Kedukan Bukit InscriptionThe 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 the oldest surviving specimen of the Malay language, in a form known as Old Malay. It is a small...
) and in PalembangPalembang is the capital city of the South Sumatra province in Indonesia. Palembang is one of the oldest cities in Indonesia, and has a history of being a capital of a maritime empire. Located on the Musi River banks on the east coast of southern Sumatra island, it has an area of 400.61 square...
in southern Sumatra. "Malayu" was the name of an old kingdom located in Jambi province in eastern Sumatra. It was known in ancient ChineseThe Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
texts as "Mo-lo-yo" and mentioned in the Nagarakertagama, an old JavaneseJavanese language is the language of the Javanese people from 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...
epic written in 1365, as one of the "tributary states" of the Majapahit kingdom in eastern Java.
The use of Malay throughout insular and peninsular Southeast AsiaSoutheast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
is linked to the rise of MuslimA Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
kingdoms and the spread of IslamIslam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
, itself a consequence of growing regional trade. At the time of European colonization, the Johor-Riau Sultanate had ascendancy. Since the 15th century, the Johor-Riau dialect of Malay had been used as a lingua francaA lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
throughout the Malay ArchipelagoThe Malay Archipelago refers to the archipelago between mainland Southeastern Asia and Australia. The name was derived from the anachronistic concept of a Malay race....
, as the similar dialect of MalaccaEstablished by the Malay ruler Parameswara, the Sultanate of Malacca was first a Hindu kingdom in 1402 and later became Muslim following the marriage of the princess of Pasai in 1409. Centered in the modern town of Malacca, the sultanate bordered the Ayutthaya Kingdom of Siam in the north to...
had been used before it. When Johor-Riau was divided between British MalayaBritish Malaya loosely described a set of states on the Malay Peninsula and the Island of Singapore that were brought under British control between the 18th and the 20th centuries...
(JohorJohor is a Malaysian state, located in the southern portion of Peninsular Malaysia. It is one of the most developed states in Malaysia. The state capital city and royal city of Johor is Johor Bahru, formerly known as Tanjung Puteri...
) and the Dutch East IndiesThe Dutch East Indies was a Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II. It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Netherlands government in 1800....
(Riau), its language was accorded official status in both territories.
Indonesia pronounced Riau (Johor) Malay its official language (Bahasa Indonesia) when it gained independenceIndependence 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....
. Since 1928, nationalists and young people throughout the Indonesian archipelago had declared Malay to be Indonesia's only official language, as proclaimed in the Sumpah PemudaThe Youth Pledge , was a declaration made on 28 October 1928 by young Indonesian nationalists at a conference in the then-Dutch East Indies. They proclaimed three ideals, one motherland, one nation and one language.-Background:...
"Youth Vow." Thus Indonesia was the first country to designate Malay as an official language.
In Malaysia, the 1957 Article 152 of the Federation adopted Johor (Malacca) Malay as the official language (Bahasa Malaysia). The name "Malaysia", in both language and country, emphasized that the nation consisted of more than just ethnic MalaysMalays are an ethnic group of Austronesian people predominantly inhabiting the Malay Peninsula, including the southernmost parts of Thailand, the east coast of Sumatra, the coast of Borneo, and the smaller islands which lie between these locations...
. In 1986 the official name was changed to Bahasa Melayu, but in 2007 it was changed back.
"Bahasa Melayu" was defined as Brunei's official language in the country's 1959 Constitution.
The Indonesian and Malaysian dialects of Malay are separated by some centuries of different vocabulary development, partly due to the influence of different colonial languages; DutchDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
in the case of Indonesia, formerly the Dutch East IndiesThe Dutch East Indies was a Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II. It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Netherlands government in 1800....
, and EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
in the case of Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei, which were formerly under British ruleThe British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It 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...
. However, Indonesia and Malaysia largely unified their previously divergent orthographies in 1972, and they along with Brunei have set up a joint commission to develop common scientific and technical vocabulary and otherwise cooperate to keep their standards convergent.
Some Malay dialectThe term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a 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,...
s, however, show only limited mutual intelligibilityIn linguistics, mutual intelligibility is recognized as a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related languages can readily understand each other without intentional study or extraordinary effort...
with the standard language; for example, KelantaneseKelantanese Malay is the Malay dialect spoken in Kelantan state of Malaysia, as well as Besut district of Terengganu and the Perhentian Islands. Many people in district of Baling , Sik and Padang Terap in Kedah speak in a language similar to language spoken in Kelantan. It is sometimes...
or Sarawakian pronunciation is difficult for many fellow Malaysians to understand, while IndonesianIndonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....
contains many words unfamiliar to speakers of Malaysian, some because of JavaneseJavanese language is the language of the Javanese people from 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...
, SundaneseSundanese is the language of about 27 million people from the western third of Java or about 15% of the Indonesian population....
or other local languageMore than 700 living languages are spoken in Indonesia. Most belong to the Austronesian language family, with a few Papuan languages also spoken. The official language is Indonesian , a modified version of Malay, which is used in commerce, administration, education and the media, but most...
influence, and some because of slangIndonesian slang is an informal language of Indonesia primarily spoken in urban areas.-History:Indonesian slang is the informal version of Indonesian...
.
The language spoken by the PeranakanPeranakan Chinese and Baba-Nyonya are terms used for the descendants of late 15th and 16th-century Chinese immigrants to the Indonesian archipelago of Nusantara during the Colonial era....
(Straits Chinese, a hybrid of Chinese settlers from the Ming DynastyThe Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
and local Malays) is a unique patoisPatois 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...
of Malay and the Hokkien Chinese, which is mostly spoken in the former Straits SettlementsThe Straits Settlements were a group of British territories located in Southeast Asia.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...
of PenangPenang is a state in Malaysia and the name of its constituent island, located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia by the Strait of Malacca. It is bordered by Kedah in the north and east, and Perak in the south. Penang is the second smallest Malaysian state in area after Perlis, and the...
and MalaccaMalacca , dubbed The Historic State or Negeri Bersejarah among locals) 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...
in Malaysia, and the Indonesian Archipelago.
History
{{Main|Old Malay}}
The history of the Malay language can be divided into five periods: Old MalayThe Old Malay language, also called Classical Malay, is the ancestor of the modern Malay language, including Indonesian and Malaysian. It developed in the now Melayu Kingdom of Sumatra. It was heavily influenced by Sanskrit and Kawi , and was grammatically quite similar to modern Malay.-Old...
, the Transitional Period, the Malacca Period, Late Modern Malay, and modern Malay.
Old Malay, the mother of modern Malay was influenced by SanskritSanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit 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 HinduismHinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
and BuddhismBuddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
. The sanskrit loanwords can be found in Old Malay vocabulary. The earliest known stone inscription in the Old Malay language was found in Sumatra, written in PallavaThe Pallava dynasty was a Tamil dynasty which ruled the northern Tamil Nadu region and the southern Andhra Pradesh region with their capital at Kanchipuram...
variant of Grantha script and dates back to 7th century – known as Kedukan Bukit InscriptionThe 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 the oldest surviving specimen of the Malay language, in a form known as Old Malay. It is a small...
, 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 MusiThe Musi River is located in southern Sumatra, Indonesia.It is about 750 kilometers long, and drains most of South Sumatra province. After flowing through Palembang, the provincial capital, it joins with the several other rivers, including the Banyuasin River, to form a delta near the city of...
. It is a small stone of 45 by 80 cm.
The earliest surviving manuscript in Malay is the Tanjong Tanah Law in post-PallavaThe Pallava dynasty was a Tamil dynasty which ruled the northern Tamil Nadu region and the southern Andhra Pradesh region with their capital at Kanchipuram...
characters. This 14th century pre-Islamic legal text produced in the Adityavarman era (1345–1377) of the DharmasrayaDharmasraya is a regency of West Sumatra, Indonesia....
Kingdom, a HinduHindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
-Buddhist kingdom that arose after the end of SrivijayaSrivijaya was a powerful ancient thalassocratic Malay empire based on the island of Sumatra, modern day Indonesia, which influenced much of Southeast Asia. The earliest solid proof of its existence dates from the 7th century; a Chinese monk, I-Tsing, wrote that he visited Srivijaya in 671 for 6...
n rule in Sumatra. The laws were for the Kerinci people who today still live in the highlands of SumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
.
From the island of Sumatra, the Malay language spread to peninsular South-east Asia (later known as Malaya and subsequently known as west Malaysia). The Malay language came into widespread use as the trade language of the Sultanate of MalaccaEstablished by the Malay ruler Parameswara, the Sultanate of Malacca was first a Hindu kingdom in 1402 and later became Muslim following the marriage of the princess of Pasai in 1409. Centered in the modern town of Malacca, the sultanate bordered the Ayutthaya Kingdom of Siam in the north to...
(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, TamilTamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
, HindiStandard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
and SanskritSanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
vocabularies. Under the Sultanate of Malacca the language evolved into a form recognizable to speakers of modern Malay.
One of the oldest surviving letters written in Malay is letters from Sultan Abu Hayat of TernateTernate is an island in the Maluku Islands of eastern Indonesia. It is located off the west coast of the larger island of Halmahera, the center of the powerful former Sultanate of Ternate....
, Maluku IslandsThe Maluku Islands are an archipelago that is part of Indonesia, and part of the larger Maritime Southeast Asia region. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone...
in present day Indonesia, dated around 1521–1522. The letter is addressed to the king of PortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, following contact with Portuguese explorer Francisco SerrãoFrancisco Serrão was a Portuguese explorer and a cousin of Ferdinand Magellan. His 1512 voyage was the first known European sailing east past Malacca through Indonesia and the Indies. He became a member of the Sultan Bayan Sirrullah, the ruler of Ternate, becoming his personal advisor...
. The letters show sign of non-native usage. This is because the Ternateans were -and still are, using a completely different language as mother tongue: the Ternate languageTernate of eastern Indonesia is a language centered on the island of Ternate but also spoken in neighboring areas such as Kayoa, Bacan, Halmahera and other areas in North Maluku. It is used by Sultanate of Ternate, famous for its role in spice trade....
, a West Papuan language. They use Malay only as lingua francaA lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
for inter-ethnic communications.
Classification and related languages
{{See also|Austronesian languages#Cross-linguistic Comparison Chart}}
Malay is a member of the AustronesianThe Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...
family of languages, which includes languages from Southeast AsiaSoutheast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
and the Pacific OceanThe Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
, with a smaller number in continental AsiaAsia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
. MalagasyMalagasy is the national language of Madagascar, a member of the Austronesian family of languages. Most people in Madagascar speak it as a first language as do some people of Malagasy descent elsewhere.-History:...
, a geographic outlier spoken in MadagascarThe Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...
in the Indian OceanThe Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...
, 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 AustronesianThe Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...
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 languagesThe Malay languages are a group of closely related languages that developed from Malay outposts across Malaysia and Indonesia. They include Malay proper , Bacanese Malay, Bengkulu, Berau Malay, Cocos Islands Malay, Jambi Malay, Kedah Malay, Kota Bangun Kutai Malay, Loncong, Pattani Malay,...
, 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 intelligible with the standard language, and the same is true with some varieties on the Malay Peninsula such as Kedah MalayKedah Malay is a form of Malay spoken in the Malaysian states of Kedah, Penang, Perak, and Perlis. It is also spoken in Thailand's southern province of Satun, where it is called "Satun Malay"....
. However, both Brunei and Kedah are quite close.
The closest relatives of the Malay languages are those left behind on Sumatra, such as MinangkabauThe Minangkabau language is an Austronesian language, spoken by the Minangkabau of West Sumatra, the western part of Riau, South Aceh Regency, the northern part of Bengkulu and Jambi, also in several cities throughout Indonesia by migrated Minangkabau, who often trade or have a restaurant...
with 5.5 million speakers on the west coast.
Writing system
{{Main|Malay alphabet}}
Malay is normally written using the Latin script (Rumi), although an Arabic alphabet called Jawi also exists. Rumi is official in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. Rumi and Jawi are co-official in Brunei. Efforts are currently being undertaken to preserve Jawi in rural areas of Malaysia, and students taking Malay language examination in Malaysia have the option of answering questions using Jawi. The Latin script, however, is the most commonly used 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]Rencong script is a writing system used to write Malay in Sumatra . The script lasted until the 18th century which was before the Dutch colonised Indonesia. It was gradually replaced by the Jawi script, a slightly modified Arabic script.The Malay used Rencong or Rencang script, Kawi script and...
and these are still in use today by the Champa Malay in VietnamVietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
and CambodiaCambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
. Old MalayThe Old Malay language, also called Classical Malay, is the ancestor of the modern Malay language, including Indonesian and Malaysian. It developed in the now Melayu Kingdom of Sumatra. It was heavily influenced by Sanskrit and Kawi , and was grammatically quite similar to modern Malay.-Old...
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 DutchDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
and British influence, Jawi was gradually replaced by the Rumi script.
Extent of use
{{Main|Varieties of Malay}}
{{See also|Malay-based creole languages}}
Malay is spoken in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, parts of Thailand, and Brunei. Indonesia and Brunei have their own standards, Malaysia and Singapore use the same standard. The extent to which Malay is used in these countries varies depending on historical and cultural circumstances. Malay is the national language in Malaysia by Article 152 of the Constitution of MalaysiaThe Federal Constitution of Malaysia, which came into force in 1957, is the supreme law of Malaysia. The Federation was initially called the Federation of Malaya and it adopted its present name, Malaysia, when the States of Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore joined the Federation...
, and became the sole official language in West Malaysia in 1968, and in East MalaysiaEast Malaysia, also known as Malaysian Borneo, is the part of Malaysia located on the island of Borneo. It consists of the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, and the Federal Territory of Labuan. It lies to the east from Peninsular Malaysia , which is located on the Malay Peninsula. The two are...
gradually from 1974. EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
continues, however, to be widely used in professional and commercial fields and in the superior courts. Other minority languages are also commonly used by the country's large ethnic minorities. The situation in Brunei is similar to that of Malaysia.
Phonology
Unlike many of its neighbouring languages, such as Thai and Vietnamese, Malay is not a tonal language.
Consonants
Malay has several phonemes found only in borrowed words (in parentheses below), principally from Arabic, Dutch, and English. Not all speakers distinguish all of them.
caption | Table of consonant phonemes of Malay
|
BilabialIn phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...
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Labio-
DentalIn phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.-Labiodental consonant in IPA:The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...
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Dental |
AlveolarAlveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...
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Post-
AlveolarPostalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate...
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PalatalPalatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...
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VelarVelars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....
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GlottalGlottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
|
| Nasal A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
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m m |
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n n |
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ny ɲ |
ng ŋ |
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| Plosive |
p p |
b b |
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{{About|the language which forms the basis of standard Indonesian and Malaysian|the different Malay variants and dialects|Malay languages}}
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official languageAn 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...
of Malaysia (as MalaysianMalaysian or Standard Malay is the official language of Malaysia and a standardized form of the Malay language of the Austronesian family. It is over 80% cognate with Indonesian and is spoken natively by over 10 million people...
), IndonesiaIndonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
(as IndonesianIndonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....
), BruneiBrunei , officially the State of Brunei Darussalam or the Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace , is a sovereign state located on the north coast of the island of Borneo, in Southeast Asia...
(as Melayu BruneiMelayu Brunei is the official standardized form of the Malay language used in Brunei. It is also spoken as lingua franca in some parts of East Malaysia such as Federal Territory of Labuan, District of Limbang and Lawas and District of Sipitang, Beaufort, Kuala Penyu and Papar . It is spoken by...
) and Singapore (as the national language and one of four official languages of Singapore). It is spoken natively by 40 million people across the Malacca Strait, including the coasts of the Malay PeninsulaThe Malay Peninsula or Thai-Malay Peninsula is a peninsula in Southeast Asia. The land mass runs approximately north-south and, at its terminus, is the southern-most point of the Asian mainland...
of Malaysia and southern ThailandThailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, the eastern coast of SumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
, and the Riau Islands in Indonesia, and has been established as a native language of part of western coastal SarawakSarawak is one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo. Known as Bumi Kenyalang , Sarawak is situated on the north-west of the island. It is the largest state in Malaysia followed by Sabah, the second largest state located to the North- East.The administrative capital is Kuching, which...
and West KalimantanWest Kalimantan is a province of Indonesia. It is one of four Indonesian provinces in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo. Its capital city Pontianak is located right on the Equator....
in BorneoBorneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
.
In Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, southern Thailand, and the southern Philippines it is called Bahasa Melayu "Malay language", and in Indonesia it has undergone a series of standardizations and modifications to form what is now called Bahasa Indonesia, "Indonesian languageIndonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....
", and furthermore designated as Bahasa Nasional "National Language" and Bahasa Persatuan/Pemersatu "Unifying Language/Lingua FrancaLingua Franca was an American magazine about intellectual and literary life in academia.-Founding:The magazine was founded in 1990 by Jeffrey Kittay, an editor and Professor of French Literature at Yale University...
". However, in areas of central to southern SumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
(mainly Riau) where the language is indigenous, Indonesians refer to it as Bahasa Melayu and designate it as one of their regional languages.
Origin
There are many hypotheses as to where the Malay language originated. One of these is that it came from SumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
island. The oldest inscriptions in Malay, dating from the end of the 7th century AD, were found on Bangka IslandBangka is an island lying east of Sumatra, Indonesia. Population 626,955. Area: c.4,600 sq mi .There is an additional small island named Pulau Bangka in northern Sulawesi, Indonesia.-Geography:...
, off the southeastern coast of Sumatra (the Kedukan Bukit InscriptionThe 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 the oldest surviving specimen of the Malay language, in a form known as Old Malay. It is a small...
) and in PalembangPalembang is the capital city of the South Sumatra province in Indonesia. Palembang is one of the oldest cities in Indonesia, and has a history of being a capital of a maritime empire. Located on the Musi River banks on the east coast of southern Sumatra island, it has an area of 400.61 square...
in southern Sumatra. "Malayu" was the name of an old kingdom located in Jambi province in eastern Sumatra. It was known in ancient ChineseThe Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
texts as "Mo-lo-yo" and mentioned in the Nagarakertagama, an old JavaneseJavanese language is the language of the Javanese people from 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...
epic written in 1365, as one of the "tributary states" of the Majapahit kingdom in eastern Java.
The use of Malay throughout insular and peninsular Southeast AsiaSoutheast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
is linked to the rise of MuslimA Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
kingdoms and the spread of IslamIslam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
, itself a consequence of growing regional trade. At the time of European colonization, the Johor-Riau Sultanate had ascendancy. Since the 15th century, the Johor-Riau dialect of Malay had been used as a lingua francaA lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
throughout the Malay ArchipelagoThe Malay Archipelago refers to the archipelago between mainland Southeastern Asia and Australia. The name was derived from the anachronistic concept of a Malay race....
, as the similar dialect of MalaccaEstablished by the Malay ruler Parameswara, the Sultanate of Malacca was first a Hindu kingdom in 1402 and later became Muslim following the marriage of the princess of Pasai in 1409. Centered in the modern town of Malacca, the sultanate bordered the Ayutthaya Kingdom of Siam in the north to...
had been used before it. When Johor-Riau was divided between British MalayaBritish Malaya loosely described a set of states on the Malay Peninsula and the Island of Singapore that were brought under British control between the 18th and the 20th centuries...
(JohorJohor is a Malaysian state, located in the southern portion of Peninsular Malaysia. It is one of the most developed states in Malaysia. The state capital city and royal city of Johor is Johor Bahru, formerly known as Tanjung Puteri...
) and the Dutch East IndiesThe Dutch East Indies was a Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II. It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Netherlands government in 1800....
(Riau), its language was accorded official status in both territories.
Indonesia pronounced Riau (Johor) Malay its official language (Bahasa Indonesia) when it gained independenceIndependence 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....
. Since 1928, nationalists and young people throughout the Indonesian archipelago had declared Malay to be Indonesia's only official language, as proclaimed in the Sumpah PemudaThe Youth Pledge , was a declaration made on 28 October 1928 by young Indonesian nationalists at a conference in the then-Dutch East Indies. They proclaimed three ideals, one motherland, one nation and one language.-Background:...
"Youth Vow." Thus Indonesia was the first country to designate Malay as an official language.
In Malaysia, the 1957 Article 152 of the Federation adopted Johor (Malacca) Malay as the official language (Bahasa Malaysia). The name "Malaysia", in both language and country, emphasized that the nation consisted of more than just ethnic MalaysMalays are an ethnic group of Austronesian people predominantly inhabiting the Malay Peninsula, including the southernmost parts of Thailand, the east coast of Sumatra, the coast of Borneo, and the smaller islands which lie between these locations...
. In 1986 the official name was changed to Bahasa Melayu, but in 2007 it was changed back.
"Bahasa Melayu" was defined as Brunei's official language in the country's 1959 Constitution.
The Indonesian and Malaysian dialects of Malay are separated by some centuries of different vocabulary development, partly due to the influence of different colonial languages; DutchDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
in the case of Indonesia, formerly the Dutch East IndiesThe Dutch East Indies was a Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II. It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Netherlands government in 1800....
, and EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
in the case of Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei, which were formerly under British ruleThe British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It 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...
. However, Indonesia and Malaysia largely unified their previously divergent orthographies in 1972, and they along with Brunei have set up a joint commission to develop common scientific and technical vocabulary and otherwise cooperate to keep their standards convergent.
Some Malay dialectThe term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a 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,...
s, however, show only limited mutual intelligibilityIn linguistics, mutual intelligibility is recognized as a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related languages can readily understand each other without intentional study or extraordinary effort...
with the standard language; for example, KelantaneseKelantanese Malay is the Malay dialect spoken in Kelantan state of Malaysia, as well as Besut district of Terengganu and the Perhentian Islands. Many people in district of Baling , Sik and Padang Terap in Kedah speak in a language similar to language spoken in Kelantan. It is sometimes...
or Sarawakian pronunciation is difficult for many fellow Malaysians to understand, while IndonesianIndonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....
contains many words unfamiliar to speakers of Malaysian, some because of JavaneseJavanese language is the language of the Javanese people from 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...
, SundaneseSundanese is the language of about 27 million people from the western third of Java or about 15% of the Indonesian population....
or other local languageMore than 700 living languages are spoken in Indonesia. Most belong to the Austronesian language family, with a few Papuan languages also spoken. The official language is Indonesian , a modified version of Malay, which is used in commerce, administration, education and the media, but most...
influence, and some because of slangIndonesian slang is an informal language of Indonesia primarily spoken in urban areas.-History:Indonesian slang is the informal version of Indonesian...
.
The language spoken by the PeranakanPeranakan Chinese and Baba-Nyonya are terms used for the descendants of late 15th and 16th-century Chinese immigrants to the Indonesian archipelago of Nusantara during the Colonial era....
(Straits Chinese, a hybrid of Chinese settlers from the Ming DynastyThe Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
and local Malays) is a unique patoisPatois 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...
of Malay and the Hokkien Chinese, which is mostly spoken in the former Straits SettlementsThe Straits Settlements were a group of British territories located in Southeast Asia.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...
of PenangPenang is a state in Malaysia and the name of its constituent island, located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia by the Strait of Malacca. It is bordered by Kedah in the north and east, and Perak in the south. Penang is the second smallest Malaysian state in area after Perlis, and the...
and MalaccaMalacca , dubbed The Historic State or Negeri Bersejarah among locals) 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...
in Malaysia, and the Indonesian Archipelago.
History
{{Main|Old Malay}}
The history of the Malay language can be divided into five periods: Old MalayThe Old Malay language, also called Classical Malay, is the ancestor of the modern Malay language, including Indonesian and Malaysian. It developed in the now Melayu Kingdom of Sumatra. It was heavily influenced by Sanskrit and Kawi , and was grammatically quite similar to modern Malay.-Old...
, the Transitional Period, the Malacca Period, Late Modern Malay, and modern Malay.
Old Malay, the mother of modern Malay was influenced by SanskritSanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit 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 HinduismHinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
and BuddhismBuddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
. The sanskrit loanwords can be found in Old Malay vocabulary. The earliest known stone inscription in the Old Malay language was found in Sumatra, written in PallavaThe Pallava dynasty was a Tamil dynasty which ruled the northern Tamil Nadu region and the southern Andhra Pradesh region with their capital at Kanchipuram...
variant of Grantha script and dates back to 7th century – known as Kedukan Bukit InscriptionThe 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 the oldest surviving specimen of the Malay language, in a form known as Old Malay. It is a small...
, 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 MusiThe Musi River is located in southern Sumatra, Indonesia.It is about 750 kilometers long, and drains most of South Sumatra province. After flowing through Palembang, the provincial capital, it joins with the several other rivers, including the Banyuasin River, to form a delta near the city of...
. It is a small stone of 45 by 80 cm.
The earliest surviving manuscript in Malay is the Tanjong Tanah Law in post-PallavaThe Pallava dynasty was a Tamil dynasty which ruled the northern Tamil Nadu region and the southern Andhra Pradesh region with their capital at Kanchipuram...
characters. This 14th century pre-Islamic legal text produced in the Adityavarman era (1345–1377) of the DharmasrayaDharmasraya is a regency of West Sumatra, Indonesia....
Kingdom, a HinduHindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
-Buddhist kingdom that arose after the end of SrivijayaSrivijaya was a powerful ancient thalassocratic Malay empire based on the island of Sumatra, modern day Indonesia, which influenced much of Southeast Asia. The earliest solid proof of its existence dates from the 7th century; a Chinese monk, I-Tsing, wrote that he visited Srivijaya in 671 for 6...
n rule in Sumatra. The laws were for the Kerinci people who today still live in the highlands of SumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
.
From the island of Sumatra, the Malay language spread to peninsular South-east Asia (later known as Malaya and subsequently known as west Malaysia). The Malay language came into widespread use as the trade language of the Sultanate of MalaccaEstablished by the Malay ruler Parameswara, the Sultanate of Malacca was first a Hindu kingdom in 1402 and later became Muslim following the marriage of the princess of Pasai in 1409. Centered in the modern town of Malacca, the sultanate bordered the Ayutthaya Kingdom of Siam in the north to...
(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, TamilTamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
, HindiStandard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
and SanskritSanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
vocabularies. Under the Sultanate of Malacca the language evolved into a form recognizable to speakers of modern Malay.
One of the oldest surviving letters written in Malay is letters from Sultan Abu Hayat of TernateTernate is an island in the Maluku Islands of eastern Indonesia. It is located off the west coast of the larger island of Halmahera, the center of the powerful former Sultanate of Ternate....
, Maluku IslandsThe Maluku Islands are an archipelago that is part of Indonesia, and part of the larger Maritime Southeast Asia region. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone...
in present day Indonesia, dated around 1521–1522. The letter is addressed to the king of PortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, following contact with Portuguese explorer Francisco SerrãoFrancisco Serrão was a Portuguese explorer and a cousin of Ferdinand Magellan. His 1512 voyage was the first known European sailing east past Malacca through Indonesia and the Indies. He became a member of the Sultan Bayan Sirrullah, the ruler of Ternate, becoming his personal advisor...
. The letters show sign of non-native usage. This is because the Ternateans were -and still are, using a completely different language as mother tongue: the Ternate languageTernate of eastern Indonesia is a language centered on the island of Ternate but also spoken in neighboring areas such as Kayoa, Bacan, Halmahera and other areas in North Maluku. It is used by Sultanate of Ternate, famous for its role in spice trade....
, a West Papuan language. They use Malay only as lingua francaA lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
for inter-ethnic communications.
Classification and related languages
{{See also|Austronesian languages#Cross-linguistic Comparison Chart}}
Malay is a member of the AustronesianThe Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...
family of languages, which includes languages from Southeast AsiaSoutheast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
and the Pacific OceanThe Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
, with a smaller number in continental AsiaAsia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
. MalagasyMalagasy is the national language of Madagascar, a member of the Austronesian family of languages. Most people in Madagascar speak it as a first language as do some people of Malagasy descent elsewhere.-History:...
, a geographic outlier spoken in MadagascarThe Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...
in the Indian OceanThe Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...
, 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 AustronesianThe Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...
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 languagesThe Malay languages are a group of closely related languages that developed from Malay outposts across Malaysia and Indonesia. They include Malay proper , Bacanese Malay, Bengkulu, Berau Malay, Cocos Islands Malay, Jambi Malay, Kedah Malay, Kota Bangun Kutai Malay, Loncong, Pattani Malay,...
, 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 intelligible with the standard language, and the same is true with some varieties on the Malay Peninsula such as Kedah MalayKedah Malay is a form of Malay spoken in the Malaysian states of Kedah, Penang, Perak, and Perlis. It is also spoken in Thailand's southern province of Satun, where it is called "Satun Malay"....
. However, both Brunei and Kedah are quite close.
The closest relatives of the Malay languages are those left behind on Sumatra, such as MinangkabauThe Minangkabau language is an Austronesian language, spoken by the Minangkabau of West Sumatra, the western part of Riau, South Aceh Regency, the northern part of Bengkulu and Jambi, also in several cities throughout Indonesia by migrated Minangkabau, who often trade or have a restaurant...
with 5.5 million speakers on the west coast.
Writing system
{{Main|Malay alphabet}}
Malay is normally written using the Latin script (Rumi), although an Arabic alphabet called Jawi also exists. Rumi is official in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. Rumi and Jawi are co-official in Brunei. Efforts are currently being undertaken to preserve Jawi in rural areas of Malaysia, and students taking Malay language examination in Malaysia have the option of answering questions using Jawi. The Latin script, however, is the most commonly used 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]Rencong script is a writing system used to write Malay in Sumatra . The script lasted until the 18th century which was before the Dutch colonised Indonesia. It was gradually replaced by the Jawi script, a slightly modified Arabic script.The Malay used Rencong or Rencang script, Kawi script and...
and these are still in use today by the Champa Malay in VietnamVietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
and CambodiaCambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
. Old MalayThe Old Malay language, also called Classical Malay, is the ancestor of the modern Malay language, including Indonesian and Malaysian. It developed in the now Melayu Kingdom of Sumatra. It was heavily influenced by Sanskrit and Kawi , and was grammatically quite similar to modern Malay.-Old...
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 DutchDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
and British influence, Jawi was gradually replaced by the Rumi script.
Extent of use
{{Main|Varieties of Malay}}
{{See also|Malay-based creole languages}}
Malay is spoken in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, parts of Thailand, and Brunei. Indonesia and Brunei have their own standards, Malaysia and Singapore use the same standard. The extent to which Malay is used in these countries varies depending on historical and cultural circumstances. Malay is the national language in Malaysia by Article 152 of the Constitution of MalaysiaThe Federal Constitution of Malaysia, which came into force in 1957, is the supreme law of Malaysia. The Federation was initially called the Federation of Malaya and it adopted its present name, Malaysia, when the States of Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore joined the Federation...
, and became the sole official language in West Malaysia in 1968, and in East MalaysiaEast Malaysia, also known as Malaysian Borneo, is the part of Malaysia located on the island of Borneo. It consists of the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, and the Federal Territory of Labuan. It lies to the east from Peninsular Malaysia , which is located on the Malay Peninsula. The two are...
gradually from 1974. EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
continues, however, to be widely used in professional and commercial fields and in the superior courts. Other minority languages are also commonly used by the country's large ethnic minorities. The situation in Brunei is similar to that of Malaysia.
Phonology
Unlike many of its neighbouring languages, such as Thai and Vietnamese, Malay is not a tonal language.
Consonants
Malay has several phonemes found only in borrowed words (in parentheses below), principally from Arabic, Dutch, and English. Not all speakers distinguish all of them.
caption | Table of consonant phonemes of Malay
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BilabialIn phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...
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Labio-
DentalIn phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.-Labiodental consonant in IPA:The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...
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Dental |
AlveolarAlveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...
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Post-
AlveolarPostalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate...
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PalatalPalatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...
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VelarVelars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....
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GlottalGlottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
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| Nasal A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
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m m |
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n n |
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ny ɲ |
ng ŋ |
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| Plosive |
p p |
b b |
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t t̪ |
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d d |
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(z) [{{IPAlink |
colspan="2" | (sy) [{{IPAlink |
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colspan="2" | (kh) [{{IPAlink |
h h |
| Approximant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...
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| Trill In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular....
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colspan="2" | r [{{IPAlink |
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, /t/, /k/ are unaspiratedIn phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ...
, as in the Romance languagesThe Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
, or as in English spy, sty, sky. In final position, they are unreleasedAn unreleased stop or unreleased plosive is a plosive consonant without an audible release burst. That is, the oral tract is blocked to pronounce the consonant, and there is no audible indication of when that occlusion ends...
[p̚, t̪̚, ʔ̚], with final k being a glottal stopThe glottal stop, or more fully, the voiceless glottal plosive, is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English, the feature is represented, for example, by the hyphen in uh-oh! and by the apostrophe or [[ʻokina]] in Hawaii among those using a preservative pronunciation of...
(see next). /b, d/ are also unreleased, and therefore devoiced, [p̚, t̚]. There is no liaison: they remain unreleased even when followed by a vowel, as in kulit ubi "potato skins", though they are pronounced as a normal medial consonant when followed by a suffix.
- In some words, glottal stop /ʔ/ can occur at the end of a word, where it is written ⟨k⟩: baik, bapak. Only a few words have this sound in the middle, e.g. bakso (meatballs). It may be represented by an apostrophe in Arabic derived words such as Al Qur'an. is dental, as in French, whereas /d/ is alveolar as in English. are pronounced with the tip of the tongue further forward than in English (alveolar), and without the lip rounding of English. clearly pronounced between like vowels, as in Pahang. Elsewhere it is a very light sound, and is frequently silent, as in hutan ~ utan "forest", sahut ~ saut "answer". (It is not, however, dropped when initial from Arabic loans such as hakim "judge".) In dialects which retain final /h/, it may engage in liaison, as in sudah itu [suda hitu] "after that". varies significantly across dialects. Its position relative to schwa is ambiguous: kertas "paper" may be pronounced [krəˈtas] or [kərəˈtas].
Orthographic Note:
- The sequence /ŋɡ/ and /ŋk/ are written ⟨ngg⟩, ⟨ngk⟩.
Phonemes which occur only in Arabic loans may be pronounced distinctly by speakers who know Arabic. Otherwise they tend to be substituted for with native sounds.
Table of Arabic consonants
| Distinct | Assimilated | Example |
| x |
k, h |
khabar, kabar "news" |
| ð |
d, l |
reda, rela "good will" |
| /{{Unicode|zˁ}}/ |
l, z |
lohor, zuhur "noon (prayer)" |
| ɣ |
ɡ, r |
gaib, raib "hidden" |
| ʕ{{citation needed|date=January 2011}} |
ʔ |
saat, sa'at "hour" |
Vowels
Malay originally had four vowels, but in many dialects today has six. /ə/ is generally epenthetic, but cannot be predicted in some words, such as enam "six". /e, o/ are distinguished in English loan words, and also in many Indonesian dialects. In some dialects, /ai, au/ are pronounced as /e, o/.
caption | Table of vowel phonemes of Malay
| Height |
Front |
Central |
Back |
| Close |
i [{{IPAlink |
|
u [{{IPAlink |
| Mid |
(e) [{{IPAlink |
e ə |
(o) [{{IPAlink |
| Open |
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a [{{IPAlink |
In native Malay words, [i, u] and [e, o] are allophones. They may vary by locality, as in bugil "stripped" (Indonesia and northern Malaya) vs. bogel (southern Malaya).
There are two vowelIn phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s represented by the letter ⟨e⟩, /i/ when judged to be pronounced [e], and /ə/. The ⟨e⟩ in numerous grammatical affixAn affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...
es and function wordFunction words are words that have little lexical meaning or have ambiguous meaning, but instead serve to express grammatical relationships with other words within a sentence, or specify the attitude or mood of the speaker...
s is always /ə/.
In some parts of Peninsular Malaysia, especially in the central and southern regions, most words which end with the letter a are pronounced /ə/.
The sequences ai, au, and oi are diphthongA diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
s in open syllables. In closed syllables, however, as in air (water), the two vowels are pronounced in hiatusIn phonology, hiatus or diaeresis refers to two vowel sounds occurring in adjacent syllables, with no intervening consonant. When two adjacent vowel sounds occur in the same syllable, the result is instead described as a diphthong....
. In other words, pulau "island" and laut "sea" both have two syllables. Other vowel sequences, as in daerah "district" and siul "whistle", are always in hiatus. In some dialects in Indonesia, diphthongal /ai/ and /au/ are conflated with /e, o/.
caption | Table diphthongs of Malay
| Orthography |
IPA |
| ai |
[ai̯, e] |
| au |
[au̯, o] |
| oi |
[ui̯, oi̯] |
Stress
Malay has light StressIn linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
which falls on either the final or penultimate syllable, depending on regional variations as well as the presence of the schwa (/ə/) in a word. Generally, the penultimate syllable is stressed, unless its vowel is a schwa /ə/. If the penult has a schwa, then stress moves to the ante-penultimate syllable if there is one, even if that syllable has a schwa as well; if the word is disyllabic, the stress is final. In disyllabic stress with a closed penultimate syllable, such as tinggal "stay" and rantai "chain"{{Clarify|date=June 2011}}
However, there is some disagreement among linguists on whether stress is phonemic (unpredictable), with at least one researcher suggesting that in some dialects there is no lexical stress at all.
Nasal assimilation
Important in the derivation of Malay nouns and verbs is the assimilation of the nasal consonant at the end of the important derivational prefixes meng- /məŋ/ and peng- /pəŋ/. The pronunciation of this nasal matches the place of articulationIn articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation of a consonant is the point of contact where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an articulatory gesture, an active articulator , and a passive location...
of the following sound.
The nasal is dropped before sonorantIn phonetics and phonology, a sonorant is a speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; fricatives and plosives are not sonorants. Vowels are sonorants, as are consonants like and . Other consonants, like or , restrict the airflow enough to cause turbulence, and...
consonants, the nasals /m, n, ɲ, ŋ/ and the liquids /l, r/. (It does not occur before approximants.) It is retained before and assimilates to obstruentAn obstruent is a consonant sound formed by obstructing airflow, causing increased air pressure in the vocal tract, such as [k], [d͡ʒ] and [f]. In phonetics, articulation may be divided into two large classes: obstruents and sonorants....
consonants: labial /m/ before labial /p, b/, alveolar /n/ before alveolar /t, d, tʃ, dʒ/, and velar /ŋ/ before other sounds, velar /k, ɡ/ as well as /h/ and all vowels.
In addition, a voiceless obstruent, apart from /tʃ/ (that is /p, t, s, k/), is dropped. /s/ behaves oddly here, producing a palatal nasal /ɲ/ before dropping.
That is, meng- produces the following derivations:
Table of nasal assimilation
| root | meng- derivation |
| masak |
memasak |
| nanti |
menanti |
| layang |
melayang |
| rampas |
merampas |
| beli |
membeli |
| dukong |
mendukong |
| jawab |
menjawab |
| gulong |
menggulong |
| hantar |
menghantar |
|
| root | meng- derivation |
| ajar |
mengajar |
| isi |
mengisi |
| pilih |
memilih |
| tulis |
menulis |
| cabut |
mencabut |
| kenal |
mengenal |
| surat |
menyurat |
|
Grammar
In Malay, there are four basic parts of speech: Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and grammatical function words (particles). Nouns and verbs may be basic roots, but frequently they are derivedIn linguistics, derivation is the process of forming a new word on the basis of an existing word, e.g. happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine...
from other words by means of prefixes and suffixes.
Word formation
Malay is an agglutinative languageAn agglutinative language is a language that uses agglutination extensively: most words are formed by joining morphemes together. This term was introduced by Wilhelm von Humboldt in 1836 to classify languages from a morphological point of view...
, and new words are formed by three methods. New words can be created by attaching affixes onto a root word (affixation), formation of a compound word (composition), or repetition of words or portions of words (reduplicationReduplication in linguistics is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word is repeated exactly or with a slight change....
).
Affixes
Root words are either nouns or verbs, which can be affixed to derive new words, e.g. masak (to cook) yields memasak (cooks), memasakkan (cooks for), dimasak (cooked) as well as pemasak (a cook), masakan (a meal, cookery). Many initial consonants undergo mutation when prefixes are added: e.g. sapu (sweep) becomes penyapu (broom); panggil (to call) becomes memanggil (calls), tapis (to sieve) becomes menapis (sieves).
Other examples of the use of affixAn affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...
es to change the meaning of a word can be seen with the word ajar (teach):
- ajar = teach
- ajaran = teachings
- belajar = to learn
- mengajar = to teach
- diajar = being taught (intransitive
In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb that has no object. This differs from a transitive verb, which takes one or more objects. Both classes of verb are related to the concept of the transitivity of a verb....
)
- diajarkan = being taught (transitive
In syntax, a transitive verb is a verb that requires both a direct subject and one or more objects. The term is used to contrast intransitive verbs, which do not have objects.-Examples:Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs:...
)
- mempelajari = to study
- dipelajari = being studied
- pelajar = student
- pengajar = teacher
- pelajaran = subject
- pengajaran = lesson, moral of story
- pembelajaran = learning
- terajar = taught (accidentally)
- terpelajar = well-educated
- berpelajaran = is educated
There are four types of affixes, namely prefixA prefix is an affix which is placed before the root of a word. Particularly in the study of languages,a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the words to which it is affixed.Examples of prefixes:...
es (awalan), suffixIn linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs...
es (akhiran), circumfixA circumfix is an affix, a morpheme that is placed around another morpheme. Circumfixes contrast with prefixes, attached to the beginnings of words; suffixes, that are attached at the end; and infixes, inserted in the middle. See also epenthesis...
es (apitan) and infixAn infix is an affix inserted inside a word stem . It contrasts with adfix, a rare term for an affix attached to the end of a stem, such as a prefix or suffix.-Indonesian:...
es (sisipan). These affixes are categorised into noun affixes, verb affixes, and adjective affixes.
Noun affixes are affixes that form nouns upon addition to root words. The following are examples of noun affixes:
| Type of noun affixes |
Affix |
Example of root word |
Example of derived word |
| Prefix |
pə(r)- ~ pəng- |
duduk (sit) |
penduduk (population) |
|
kə- |
hendak (want) |
kehendak (desire) |
|
juru- |
wang (money) |
juruwang (cashier) |
| Infix |
⟨əl⟩ |
tunjuk (point) |
telunjuk (index finger, command) |
|
⟨əm⟩ |
kelut (dishevelled) |
kemelut (chaos, crisis) |
|
⟨ər⟩ |
gigi (teeth) |
gerigi (toothed blade) |
| Suffix |
-an |
bangun (wake up, raise) |
bangunan (building) |
| Circumfix |
kə-...-an |
raja (king) |
kerajaan (kingdom) |
|
pə(r)-...-an
pəng-...-an |
kerja (work) |
pekerjaan (occupation) |
The prefix per- drops its r before r, l and frequently before p, t, k. In some words it is peng-; though formally distinct, these are treated as variants of the same prefix in Malay grammar books.
Similarly, verb affixes are attached to root words to form verbs. In Malay, there are:
| Type of verb affixes |
Affix |
Example of root word |
Example of derived word |
| Prefix |
bər- |
ajar (teach) |
belajar (to study) |
|
məng- |
tolong (help) |
menolong (to help) |
|
di- |
ambil (take) |
diambil (be taken) |
|
məmpər- |
kemas (tidy up, orderly) |
memperkemas (to arrange further) |
|
dipər- |
dalam (deep) |
diperdalam (be deepened) |
|
tər- |
makan (eat) |
termakan (to have accidentally eaten) |
| Suffix |
-kan |
letak (place, keep) |
letakkan (keep) |
|
-i |
jauh (far) |
jauhi (avoid) |
| Circumfix |
bər-...-an |
pasang (pair) |
berpasangan (in pairs) |
|
bər-...-kan |
dasar (base) |
berdasarkan (based on) |
|
məng-...-kan |
pasti (sure) |
memastikan (to make sure) |
|
məng-...-i |
teman (company) |
menemani (to accompany) |
|
məmpər-...-kan |
guna (use) |
mempergunakan (to utilise, to exploit) |
|
məmpər-...-i |
ajar (teach) |
mempelajari (to study) |
|
kə-...-an |
hilang (disappear) |
kehilangan (to lose) |
|
di-...-i |
sakit (pain) |
disakiti (to be hurt by) |
|
di-...-kan |
benar (right) |
dibenarkan (is allowed to) |
|
dipər-...-kan |
kenal (know, recognise) |
diperkenalkan (is being introduced) |
Adjective affixes are attached to root words to form adjectives:
| Type of adjective affixes |
Affix |
Example of root word |
Example of derived word |
| Prefix |
tər- |
kenal (know) |
terkenal (famous) |
|
sə- |
lari (run) |
selari (parallel) |
| Infix |
⟨əl⟩ |
serak (disperse) |
selerak (messy) |
|
⟨əm⟩ |
cerlang (radiant bright) |
cemerlang (bright, excellent) |
|
⟨ər⟩ |
sabut (husk) |
serabut (dishevelled) |
| Circumfix |
kə-...-an |
barat (west) |
kebaratan (westernized) |
In addition to these affixes, Malay also has a lot of borrowed affixes from other languages such as Sanskrit, Arabic and English. For example maha-, pasca-, eka-, bi-, anti-, pro- etc.
Compound word
In Malay, new words can be formed by joining two or more root words. Compound words, when they exist freely in a sentence, are often written separately. Compound words are only attached to each other when they are bound by circumfix or when they are already considered as stable words.
For example, the word kereta which means car and api which means fire, are compounded to form a new word kereta api (train). Similarly, ambil alih (take over) is formed using the root words ambil (take) and alih (move), but will link together when a circumfix is attached to it, i.e. pengambilalihan (takeover). Certain stable words, such as kakitangan (personnel), and kerjasama (cooperation), are spelled as one word even when they exist freely in sentences.
Reduplication
Reduplication (Kata Ganda) in the Malay language is mainly used for forming plurals. Sometimes, however, this is not the case. Reduplication may alter the meaning of the whole word, or change the usage of the word in sentences.
There are four types of words reduplication in Malay, namely
- Full reduplication (Kata Ganda Penuh)
- Partial reduplication (Kata Ganda Separa)
- Rhythmic reduplication (Kata Ganda Berentak)
- Reduplication of meaning
Full reduplication is the complete duplication of the word, separated by a dash (-). It is used in forming plurals. For example, buku (books) when duplicated form buku-buku (books), while the duplicated form of batu (stone) is batu-batu (stones). However, kipas-kipas (propellers) from the root word kipas (fan) is an exception as it alters the whole meaning of the word.
Partial reduplication also form plurals, such as dedaun (leaves) from the word daun (leaf). The words are usually not separated by spaces or punctuation, and is considered a single word.
The word batu (stone) can also be reduplicated rhythmically to form batu bata (bricks). These reduplications have the main purpose of altering the meaning of the word and can be in any form, either stuck together or separated. However, it can also form plurals such as in sayur-mayur (vegetables [bundled for the market]) from the root word sayur (vegetable/vegetables [what is found on plate]).
Measure words
Another distinguishing feature of Malay is its use of measure wordIn linguistics, measure words are words that are used in combination with a numeral to indicate an amount of some noun. They denote a unit or measurement and are used with nouns that are not countable. For instance, in English, is a mass noun and thus one cannot say *"three muds", but one can say...
s (penjodoh bilangan). In this way, it is similar to many other languages of Asia, including ChineseThe Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
, Japaneseis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, VietnameseVietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
, ThaiThai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...
, BurmeseThe Burmese language is the official language of Burma. Although the constitution officially recognizes it as the Myanmar language, most English speakers continue to refer to the language as Burmese. Burmese is the native language of the Bamar and related sub-ethnic groups of the Bamar, as well as...
, and BengaliBengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
.
Measure words are found in English two head of cattle, a loaf of bread, or this piece of paper, where *two cattle, a bread, and this paper (in the sense of this piece of paper) would be ungrammatical. The word satu reduces to se- /sə/, as it does in other compounds:
| measure word |
used for measuring |
literal translation |
example |
| buah |
things (in general), large things, abstract nouns
houses, cars, ships, mountains; books, rivers, chairs, some fruits, thoughts, etc. |
'fruit' |
dua buah meja (two tables), lima buah rumah (five houses) |
| ekor /ekor/ |
animals |
'tail' |
seekor ayam (a chicken), tiga ekor kambing (three goats) |
| orang |
human beings |
'person' |
seorang lelaki (a man), enam orang petani (six farmers), seratus orang murid (a hundred students) |
| biji |
smaller rounded objects
most fruits, cups, nuts |
'grain' |
sebiji/ sebutir telur (an egg), sebiji epal (an apple), sebutir/ butiran-butiran beras (rice or rices) |
| batang |
long stiff things
trees, walking sticks, pencils |
'trunk, rod' |
| həlai, lai |
things in thin layers or sheets
paper, cloth, feathers, hair |
'leaf' |
| kəping |
flat fragments
slabs of stone, pieces of wood, pieces of bread, land, coins, paper |
'chip' |
| pucuk |
letters, firearms, needles |
'sprout' |
| bilah |
blades: knives, spears |
'lathe' |
Less common are
| bəntuk |
rings, hooks (with ringed 'eyes') |
'curve' |
| bidanɡ |
mats, widths of cloth |
'breadth' |
| kuntum |
flowers |
'blossom' |
| tangkai |
flowers |
'stem' |
| kaki |
long-stemmed flowers |
'leg' |
| urat |
threads, sinew |
'fiber, vein' |
| pintu |
houses in a row |
'door' |
| tangga |
traditional houses with ladders |
'ladder' |
| patah |
words, proverbs |
'fragment' |
| butir |
smallest rounded objects
smaller fruits, seeds, grains, rounds of ammunition, gems, points |
'particle' |
commonly replaced with biji |
| puntung |
stumps, stubs, butt ends
of firewood, cigarettes, teeth |
stump |
| potong |
slices of bread etc. |
'cut' |
| kərat |
|
'fragment' |
| utas |
|
nets, cords, ribbons |
| carik |
things easily torn, like paper |
'shred' |
Measure words are not necessary just to say "a": burung "a bird, birds". Using se- plus a measure word is closer to English "one" or "a certain":
- Ada se-ekor burung yang pandai bercakap
- "There was a (certain) bird that could talk"
Nouns
Common derivational affixes for nouns are peng-/per-/juru- (actor, instrument, or someone characterized by the root), -an (collectivity, similarity, object, place, instrument), ke-...-an (abstractions and qualities, collectivities), per-/peng-...-an (abstraction, place, goal or result).
Gender
Malay does not make use of grammatical genderGrammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
, and there are only a few words that use natural gender; the same word is used for he and she or for his and her. Most of the words that refer to people (family terms, professions, etc.) have a form that does not distinguish between the sexes. For example, adik can both refer to a younger sibling of either sex. In order to specify the natural gender of a noun, an adjective has to be added: adik laki-laki corresponds to "brother" but really means "male younger sibling". There are some words that are gendered, for instance puteri means "princess", and putera means "prince"; words like these are usually absorbed from other languages (in these cases, from Sanskrit).
Number
There is no grammatical plural in Malay. Thus orang may mean either "person" or "people". Plurality is expressed by the context, or the usage of words such as numerals, bəbərapa "some", or səmua "all" that express plurality. In many cases, it simply isn't relevant to the speaker.
ReduplicationReduplication in linguistics is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word is repeated exactly or with a slight change....
is commonly used to emphasize plurality. However, reduplication has many other functions. For example, orang-orang means "(all the) people", but orang-orangan means "scarecrow". Similarly, while hati means "heart" or "liver", hati-hati is a verb meaning "to be careful". Also, not all reduplicated words are plural inherently plural, such as orang-orangan "scarecrow/scarecrows", biri-biri "a/some sheep" and kupu-kupu "butterfly/butterflies". Some reduplication is rhyming rather than exact, as in sayur-mayur "(all sorts of) vegetables".
Distributive affixes derive mass nouns that are effectively plural: pohon "tree", pepohonan "floraFlora is the plant life occurring in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring or indigenous—native plant life. The corresponding term for animals is fauna.-Etymology:...
, trees"; rumah "house", perumahan "housing, houses"; gunung "mountain", pegunungan "mountain range, mountains".
Quantity words come before the noun: səribu orang "a thousand people", beberapa pegunungan "a series of mountain ranges", beberapa kupu-kupu "some butterflies".
Pronouns
Personal pronouns are not a separate part of speech, but a subset of nouns. They are frequently omitted, and there are numerous ways to say "you". Commonly the person's name, title, title with name, or occupation is used ("does Johny want to go?", "would Madam like to go?"); kin terms, including fictive kinshipFictive kinship is a term used by anthropologists and ethnographers to distinguish between forms of kinship or social ties that are based on neither consanguinal nor affinal ties...
, are extremely common. However, there are also dedicated personal pronouns, as well as the demonstrative pronouns ini "this, the" and itu "that, the".
Personal pronouns
Notable among the personal-pronoun system is a distinction between two forms of "we": kita (you and me, you and us) and kami (us, but not you). The distinction is increasingly confused in colloquial Indonesian.
There are two major forms of "I", which are saya and aku. Saya is the more formal form, whereas aku is used with family, friends, and between lovers. Sahaya is an old or literary form of saya. Sa(ha)ya may also be used for "we", but in such cases it is usually used with sekalian or semua "all"; this form is ambiguous as to whether it means kami or kita. Less common are hamba "slave", hamba tuan, hamba datok (all extremely humble), beta "your servant" (in letters), patek (a commoner addressing a royal), kami (royal or editorial "we"), kita, təman, and kawan.
There are three common forms of "you", anda (formal), kamu (informal), and kalian "all" (commonly used as a plural form of you, slightly informal). Anda is used with strangers, recent acquaintances, in advertisements, in business, and when you wish to show respect (though terms like tuan "sir" and other titles also show respect), while kamu is used in situations where the speaker would use aku for "I". Anda sekalian is polite plural. Engkau (əngkau), commonly shortened to kau, and hang are used to social inferiors, awak to equals, and əncek (cek before a name) is polite, traditionally used for people without title. The compounds makcek and pakcek are used with village elders one is well acquainted with or the guest of.
There are a large number of other words for "I" and "you", many regional, dialectical, or borrowed from local languages. Saudara "you" (male) and saudari (female) (plural saudara-saudara or saudari-saudari) show utmost respect. Daku "I" and dikau "you" are poetic or romantic. Indonesian guaIndonesian slang is an informal language of Indonesia primarily spoken in urban areas.-History:Indonesian slang is the informal version of Indonesian...
"I" and luIndonesian slang is an informal language of Indonesia primarily spoken in urban areas.-History:Indonesian slang is the informal version of Indonesian...
"you" are slang and extremely informal. In the state of Pahang, two variants for "I" and "you" exist, depending on location. In East Pahang, around Pekan, "kome" is used as "I" while in the west around Temerloh, "koi" is used. Interestingly, "kome" is also used in Kuala Kangsar, Perak, but instead it means "you". This allegedly originated from the fact that both the royal families of Pahang and Perak (whose seats are in Pekan and Kuala Kangsar respectively) were decendants of the same ancient line.
The common word for "s/he" and "they" is ia, which has the object and emphatic/focused form dia. Bəliau "his/her Honour" is respectful. As with "you", names and kin terms are extremely common. Colloquially, dia orang is commonly used for the plural "they"; in writing, məreka "someone", mereka itu, or orang itu "those people" are used for "they".
The informal pronouns aku, kamu, engkau, ia, kami, and kita are indigenous to Malay.
Common pronouns
| Person |
Malay |
English |
| First person |
saya (standard, polite),
aku (informal, familiar) |
I, me |
| kami |
we, us: they and me, s/he and me |
| kita |
we, us: you and me, you and us |
| Second person |
anda (polite, formal),
kamu (familiar, informal) |
you, thou, thee |
anda sekalian (formal),
kalian (informal) |
you, y'all |
| Third person |
ia ~ dia,
dia orang |
he, she, him, her |
ia ~ dia,
mereka, dia orang |
they, them |
Possessive pronouns
Aku, kamu, engkau, and ia have short possessive enclitic forms. All others retain their full forms like other nouns, as does emphatic dia: meja saya, meja kita, meja anda, meja dia "my table, our table, your table, his/her table".
Possessed forms of meja "table"
| Pronoun |
Enclitic |
Possessed form |
| aku |
-ku |
mejaku (my table) |
| kamu |
-mu |
mejamu (your table) |
| engkau |
-kau |
mejakau (your table) |
| ia |
-nya |
mejanya (his, her, their table) |
There are also proclitic forms of aku and engkau, ku- and kau-. These are used when there is no emphasis on the pronoun:
- Ku-dengar raja itu penyakit sopak. Aku tahu ilmu tabib. Aku-lah mengubati dia.
- "It has come to my attention that the Raja has a skin disease. I am skilled in medicine. I will cure him."
Here ku-verb is used for a general report, aku verb is used for a factual statement, and emphatic aku-lah meng-verb (≈ "I am the one who...") for focus on the pronoun.
Demonstrative pronouns
There are two demonstrative pronouns in Malay. Ini "this, these" is used for a noun which is generally near to the speaker. Itu "that, those" is used for a noun which is generally far from the speaker. Either may sometimes be equivalent to English "the". There is no difference between singular and plural. However, plural can be indicated through duplication of a noun followed by a ini or itu. The word yang "which" is often placed before demonstrative pronouns to give emphasis and a sense of certainty, particularly when making references or enquiries about something/ someone, like English "this one" or "that one".
| Pronoun |
Malay |
English |
| ini |
buku ini |
This book, these books, the book(s) |
| buku-buku ini |
These books, (all) the books |
| itu |
kucing itu |
That cat, those cats, the cat(s) |
| kucing-kucing itu |
Those cats, the (various) cats |
| Pronoun + yang |
Example Sentence |
English Meaning |
| Yang ini |
Q: Anda mau membeli buku yang mana?
A: Saya mau beli yang ini |
Q: Which book do you wish to purchase?
A: I would like this one |
| Yang itu |
Q: Kucing mana yang makan tikusmu?
A: Yang itu! |
Q: Which cat ate your mouse?
A: That one! |
Verbs
Verbs are not inflected for person or number, and they are not marked for tense; tense is instead denoted by time adverbs (such as "yesterday") or by other tense indicators, such as sudah "already" and belum "not yet". On the other hand, there is a complex system of verb affixes to render nuances of meaning and to denote voiceIn grammar, the voice of a verb describes the relationship between the action that the verb expresses and the participants identified by its arguments . When the subject is the agent or doer of the action, the verb is in the active voice...
or intentional and accidental moodsIn linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying...
. Some of these affixes are ignored in colloquial speech.
Examples of these are the prefixes di- (patient focusAustronesian alignment, commonly known as the Philippine- or Austronesian-type voice system, is a typologically unusual morphosyntactic alignment that combines features of ergative and accusative languages...
, frequently but erroneously called "passive voice", for OVA word order), meng- (agent focusAustronesian alignment, commonly known as the Philippine- or Austronesian-type voice system, is a typologically unusual morphosyntactic alignment that combines features of ergative and accusative languages...
, frequently but erroneously called "active voice", for AVO word order), memper- and diper- (causativeIn linguistics, a causative is a form that indicates that a subject causes someone or something else to do or be something, or causes a change in state of a non-volitional event....
, agent and patient focus), ber- (stativeA stative verb is one that asserts that one of its arguments has a particular property . Statives differ from other aspectual classes of verbs in that they are static; that is, they have undefined duration...
or habitual; intransitive VS order), and ter- (agentless actions, such as those which are involuntary, sudden, or accidental, for VA = VO order); the suffixes -kan (causative or benefactive) and -i (locative, repetitive, or exhaustive); and the circumfixes ber-...-an (plural subject, diffuse actionPluractionality, or verbal number, is a grammatical device that indicates that the action or participants of a verb are plural. This differs from frequentive or iterative aspects in that the latter have no implication for the number of participants of the verb.Often a pluractional transitive verb...
) and ke-...-an (unintentional or potential action or state).
duduk to sit down
mendudukkan to sit someone down, give someone a seat, to appoint
menduduki to sit on, to occupy
didudukkan to be given a seat, to be appointed
diduduki to be sat on, to be occupied
terduduk to sink down, to come to sit
kedudukan to be situated
Often the derivation changes the meaning of the verb rather substantially:
tinggal to reside, to live (in a place)
meninggal to die, to pass away (short form of meninggal dunia to pass on from the world)
meninggalkan to leave (a place), to leave behind/abandon (someone/something)
ditinggalkan to be left behind, to be abandoned
tertinggal to be left behind
ketinggalan to miss (a bus, train) (and thus to be left behind)
Forms in ter- and ke-...-an are often equivalent to adjectives in English.
"Adjectives"
There are no grammatical adjectives in Malay. Stative verbA stative verb is one that asserts that one of its arguments has a particular property . Statives differ from other aspectual classes of verbs in that they are static; that is, they have undefined duration...
s are used for this purpose.
| Malay |
Gloss |
English |
Remarks |
| Hutan hijau |
forest be-green |
The forest is green |
as in French la forêt verdoie |
| Kereta yang merah |
car that be-red |
The red car |
|
| Dia orang yang terkenal sekali |
he/she person which be-(most)famous |
He/she is the most famous person |
|
| Orang ini terkenal sekali |
person this be-famous very |
This person is very famous |
|
Negation
Four words are used for negation in Malay, namely tidak, bukan, jangan, and belum.
- Tidak (not), often shortened to tak, is used for the negation of verbs and "adjectives".
-
Bukan (be-not) is used in the negation of a noun.
For example:
| Malay |
Gloss |
English |
| Saya tidak tahu |
I not know |
I do not know |
| Ibu saya tidak senang |
mother I not be-happy |
My mother is not happy |
| Itu bukan anjing saya |
that be-not dog I |
That is not my dog |
Jangan (do not!) is used for negating imperatives or advising against certain actions. For example,
Jangan tinggalkan saya di sini!
- Don't leave me here!
- Belum is used with the sense that something has not yet been accomplished or experienced. In this sense, belum can be used as a negative response to a question.
—Anda sudah pernah ke Indonesia or Anda sudah pernah ke Indonesia belum?
- Have you ever been to Indonesia before, (or not)?
—Belum, saya masih belum pernah pergi ke Indonesia
- No, I have not yet been to Indonesia
Orang itu belum terbiasa tinggal di Indonesia
- That person is not (yet) used to living in Indonesia.
Function words
There are 16 types of function words in Malay which perform a grammatical function in a sentence. Amongst these are conjunctions, interjections, prepositions, negations and determiners.
Negations
There are two negation words in Malay, bukan and tidak. Bukan is used to negate noun phrases and prepositions in a predicate, whereas tidak is used to negate verbs and adjectives phrases in a predicate.
| Subject |
Negation |
Predicate |
Lelaki yang berjalan dengan Birsilah itu
(That boy who is walking with Birsilah) |
bukan
(is not) |
teman lelakinya
(her boyfriend) |
Surat itu
(The letter) |
bukan
(is not) |
daripada/ dari teman/ sahabat penanya di Perancis/ Prancis
(from his penpal in France) |
Pelajar-pelajar itu
(Those students) |
tidak
(do not) |
mengikuti peraturan sekolah
(obey school regulations) |
Penguasaan Bahasa Melayunya
(His command of Malay language) |
tidak
(is not) |
sempurna
(perfect) |
The negative word bukan however, can be used before verb phrases and adjective phrases if the sentence shows contradictions.
| Subject |
Negation |
Predicate |
Contradiction |
Karangan Izwah
(Izwah's composition) |
bukan
(is not) |
baik sangat/ sangat baik,
(very good,) |
tetapi/ melainkan/ namun Izwah mendapat markah yang baik
(but Izwah received good marks) |
Kilang/ Pabrik itu
(The factory) |
bukan
(is not) |
menghasilkan kereta Kancil,
(producing Kancil cars) |
sebaliknya menghasilkan Proton Wira
(instead is producing Proton Wira) |
Word order
Adjectives, demonstrative pronouns, and possessive pronouns follow the noun they modify.
Malay does not have a grammatical subject in the sense that English does. In intransitive clauses, the noun comes before the verb. When there is both an agentIn linguistics, a grammatical agent is the cause or initiator of an event. Agent is the name of the thematic role...
and an objectAn object in grammar is part of a sentence, and often part of the predicate. It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb. Basically, it is what or whom the verb is acting upon...
, these are separated by the verb (OVA or AVO), with the difference encoded in the voice of the verb. OVA, commonly but inaccurately called "passive", is the basic and most common word order.
Either the agent or object or both may be omitted. This is commonly done to accomplish one of two things:
1) Adding a sense of politeness and respect to a statement or question
For example, a polite shop assistant in a store may avoid the use of pronouns altogether and ask:
| Ellipses of pronoun (agent & object) |
Literal English |
Idiomatic English |
| Bisa dibantu? |
Can + to be helped? |
Can (I) help (you)? |
2) Agent or object is unknown, not important, or understood from context
For example, a friend may enquire as to when you bought your property, to which you may respond:
| Ellipses of pronoun (understood agent) |
Literal English |
Idiomatic English |
| Rumah ini dibeli lima tahun yang lalu |
House this + be purchased five year(s) ago |
The house 'was purchased' five years ago |
Ultimately, the choice of voice and therefore word order is a choice between actor and patient and depends quite heavily on the language style and context.
Emphasis
Word order is frequently modified for focus or emphasis, with the focused word usually placed at the beginning of the clause and followed by a slight pause (a break in intonationIn linguistics, intonation is variation of pitch while speaking which is not used to distinguish words. It contrasts with tone, in which pitch variation does distinguish words. Intonation, rhythm, and stress are the three main elements of linguistic prosody...
):
- Saya pergi ke pasar kelmarin "I went to the market yesterday" – neutral, or with focus on the subject.
- Kelmarin saya pergi ke pasar "Yesterday I went to the market" – emphasis on yesterday.
- Ke pasar saya pergi, kelmarin "To the market I went yesterday" – emphasis on where I went yesterday.
- Pergi ke pasar, saya, kelmarin "To the market went I yesterday" – emphasis on the process of going to the market.
The latter two are more likely to be encountered in the spoken language than in writing.
Borrowed words
{{Main|List of Malay loanwords}}
The Malay language has many words borrowed from ArabicArabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
(mainly religious terms), Sanskrit, TamilTamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
, PersianPersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
, PortuguesePortuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, DutchDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, certain Chinese dialectsThe Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
and more recently, English (in particular many scientific and technological terms).
Basic phrases in Malay
In Malaysia and Indonesia, to greet somebody with "Selamat pagi" or "Selamat sejahtera" would be considered very formal, and the borrowed word "Hi" would be more usual among friends; similarly "Bye-bye" is often used when taking one's leave. However if you're a Muslim and the Malay person you're talking to is also a Muslim, it would be more appropriate to use the Islamic greeting of ' Assalamualaikum '. Muslim Malays, especially in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, rarely use ' Selamat Pagi ' ( Good Morning ), 'Selamat Siang' (Good "Early" Afternoon), ' Selamat Petang ' or ' Selamat Sore ' as widely used in Indonesia ( Good "Late" Afternoon ) , ' Selamat Malam ' ( Good Evening / Night ) or 'Selamat Tinggal / Jalan ' ( Good Bye ) when talking to one another.
| Malay Phrase |
IPA |
English Translation |
| Selamat datang |
/səlamat dataŋ/ |
Welcome (Used as a greeting) |
| Selamat jalan |
/səlamat dʒalan/ |
Have a safe journey (equivalent to "goodbye", used by the party staying) |
| Selamat tinggal |
/səlamat tiŋɡal/ |
Have a safe stay (equivalent to "goodbye", used by the party leaving) |
| Terima kasih |
/tərima kasih/ |
Thank you |
| Sama-sama |
/sama sama/ |
You are welcome (as in a response to Thank You) |
| Selamat pagi |
/səlamat paɡi/ |
Good morning |
| Selamat petang |
/səlamat pətaŋ/ |
Good afternoon/evening (note that 'Selamat petang' must not be used at night as in English. For a general greeting, use 'Selamat sejahtera') |
| Selamat sejahtera |
/səlamat sədʒahtəra/ |
Greetings (formal). Please note however that this greeting is rarely used and would be unheard of among Malays especially in Malaysia and Singapore. Its usage might be awkward for the receiver. |
| Selamat malam |
/səlamat malam/ |
Good night |
| Jumpa lagi |
|
See you again |
| Siapakah nama awak/kamu?/Nama kamu siapa? |
|
What is your name? |
| Nama saya ... |
|
My name is ... (The relevant name is placed in front. For example, if your name was Munirah, then you would introduce yourself by saying "Nama saya Munirah", which translates to "My name is Munirah") |
| Apa khabar/kabar? |
|
How are you? / What's up? (literally, "What news?") |
| Khabar/kabar baik |
|
Fine, good news |
| Saya sakit |
|
I'm sick |
| Ya |
/ja/ |
Yes |
| Tidak ("tak" colloquially) |
|
No |
| Ibu (Saya) sayang engkau/kamu (awak) |
|
I love you (In a more of a family or affectionate sort of love, e.g.: mother to daughter, the Mother addresses herself as "Ibu" (mother) or Emak (Mother) instead of "Saya" for "I". And the mother also uses the informal "engkau" instead of "awak" for "you".) Generally amongst ethnic Malays "engkau" is considered a coarse way of referring to someone and would never be used to refer to one's mother whereas it is appropriate for a mother to refer to her child as "engkau". |
| Aku (Saya) cinta pada mu (awak) |
|
I love you (romantic love. In romantic situation, use informal "Aku" instead of "Saya" for "I". And "Kamu" or just "Mu" for "You". In romance, in immediate family communication and in songs, informal pronouns are used). Please note that in Malay language, appropriate personal pronouns must be used depending on (1) whether the situation is formal or informal, (2) the social status of the people around the speaker and (3) the relationship of the speaker with the person spoken to and/or with people around the speaker. For learners of Malay language, it is advised that you stick to formal personal pronouns when speaking Malay to Malays and Indonesians. You risk being considered as rude if you use informal personal pronouns in inappropriate situations. |
| Saya benci awak/kamu |
|
I hate you |
| Saya tidak faham/paham (or simply "tak faham" colloquially) |
|
I do not understand (or simply "don't understand" colloquially) |
| Saya tidak tahu (or "tak tau" colloquially or "sik tau" in Sarawak) |
|
I do not know (or "don't know" colloquially |
| (Minta) maaf |
|
I apologise ('minta' is to request i.e. "do forgive") |
| Tumpang/numpang tanya |
|
"May I ask...?" (used when trying to ask something) |
| (Minta) tolong |
|
Please help (me) ('Tolong!' on its own just means "help") |
| Apa |
|
What |
| Tiada/tidak ada |
|
Nothing |
See also
- The list of Malay words and list of words of Malay origin at Wiktionary
Wiktionary is a multilingual, web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in 158 languages...
, the free dictionary and Wikipedia's sibling project
- Differences between Malaysian and Indonesian
- Indonesian language
Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....
- Jawi, an Arabic alphabet for Malay
- Language politics
Language politics is a term used to describe political consequences of linguistic differences between people, or on occasion the political consequences of the way a language is spoken and what words are used. It means language can express some authority. Examples include:*Recognition of a...
- List of English words of Malay origin
- Malay-based creole languages
The Malay language, through its history has experienced both pidginization and creolization. This occurred mostly through inter-island trading and interaction where people from various ethnic groups, languages and backgrounds met....
- Malaysian English
Malaysian English , formally known as Malaysian Standard English , is a form of English used and spoken in Malaysia as a second language...
, English language used formally in Malaysia.
- Manado Malay
Manado Malay is a language spoken in Manado and the surrounding area. The local name of the language is Bahasa Manado, and the name Minahasa Malay is also used, after the main ethnic group speaking the language. Since Manado Malay is used only for spoken communication, there is no standard...
- Minangkabau language
The Minangkabau language is an Austronesian language, spoken by the Minangkabau of West Sumatra, the western part of Riau, South Aceh Regency, the northern part of Bengkulu and Jambi, also in several cities throughout Indonesia by migrated Minangkabau, who often trade or have a restaurant...
- Rojak language
The term Bahasa Rojak defines the Malaysian practice of code-switching among two or more languages on a Malay base.-History:...
- Swadesh list of Malay words
- Varieties of Malay
External links
{{commons category|Malay language}}
{{InterWiki|code=ms}}
- Digital version of Wilkinson's 1926 Malay-English Dictionary
- The Extent of the Influence of Tamil on the Malay Language: A Comparative Study – Dr. T.Wignesan(This paper was given at the VIIIth World Tamil Studies Congress, held in the Tamil University in Tanjavur, India, on December–January 1994/95 Now published in the critical collection: T.Wignesan. Sporadic Striving amid Echoed Voices, Mirrored Images & Stereotypic Posturing in Malaysian-Singaporean Literatures. Allahabad: Cyberwit.net, 2008, xix–244p.)
- Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (Institute of Language and Literature Malaysia, in Malay only)
- Malay Online Web Application with 40 Interactive Free Lessons
- Malay–English Online Dictionary (from Malay to English only) from Webster's Dictionary
- Malay–English–Chinese Online Dictionary from Cari Internet
Cari Internet Sdn. Bhd. is a Malaysian company founded in 1996. It operates the eponymous website Cari.com.my, the country's first search engine and web portal, along with online florist Flowers.com.my and web hosting service Onnet...
- Online Malay Text-to-Speech Demo
- The Malay Spelling Reform, Asmah Haji Omar, (Journal of the Simplified Spelling Society, 1989-2 pp. 9–13 later designated J11)
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2010}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Malay Language}}
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