Malays are an
ethnic groupAn ethnic group is a group of humans whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage that is real or presumed.Ethnic identity is further marked by the researcher Seng Yang in the recognition from others of a group's distinctiveness and the recognition of common cultural,...
of
Austronesian peopleAustronesian peoples are a population in Oceania and Southeast Asia that speak languages of the Austronesian languages family. Austronesian peoples include: Taiwanese aborigines; the majority ethnic groups of East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Madagascar, Micronesia, and...
s predominantly inhabiting the
Malay PeninsulaThe Malay Peninsula or Thai-Malay Peninsula is a major peninsula located in Southeast Asia, with its narrowest point at the Isthmus of Kra. The land mass runs approximately north-south and, at its teminus, is the most southern point of the Asian mainland...
including the southernmost parts of Thailand, the east 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 .-Etymology:Sumatra was known in ancient times by the Sanskrit...
, the coast of
BorneoBorneo is the third largest island in the world and is located at the centre of Maritime Southeast Asia. Administratively, this island is divided among Indonesia , Malaysia and Brunei . Indonesians refer to the island as Kalimantan...
, and the smaller islands which lie between these locations. The Malay ethnic group is distinct from the concept of a
Malay raceThe concept of a Malay race was proposed by the German scientist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach . Since Blumenbach, many anthropologists have rejected his theory of five races, citing the enormous complexity of classifying races. However, the term Malay is still often used in this context, and it is...
, which encompasses a wider group of people, including most of
IndonesiaThe Republic of Indonesia is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia comprises 17,508 islands. With an estimated population of around 237 million people, it is the world's fourth most populous country, with the world's largest population of Muslims.Indonesia is a republic, with an...
and the
PhilippinesThe Philippines officially known as the Republic of the Philippines, is a country in Southeast Asia with Manila as its capital city. It comprises 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean....
. The
Malay languageMalay is a group of languages closely related to each other to the point of mutual intelligibility but that linguists consider to be separate languages. They are grouped into a group called "Local Malay", part of a larger group called "Malayan" within the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the...
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. It is on par with Bantu, Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic and Uralic as one of the best-established ancient language families...
family of languages.
History
The Encyclopedia of Malaysia: Early History, has pointed out a total of three theories of the origin of Malay:
- The Yunnan
Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately 394,000 square kilometers . The capital of the province is Kunming...
theory, MekongThe Mekong River is one of the world’s major rivers. It is the world's 10th-longest river and the 7th-longest in Asia. . Its estimated length is , and it drains an area of ....
river migration (published 1889)
- The New Guinea
New Guinea, located north of Australia, is the world's second largest island. It became separated from the Australian mainland when the area now known as the Torres Strait flooded after the last glacial period. The name Papua has long been associated with the island...
theory (published 1965)
- The Taiwan
Taiwan , also known as Formosa , is the largest island of the Republic of China in East Asia. Taiwan is located east of the Taiwan Strait, off the southeastern coast of mainland China...
theory (published 1997)
The ancestor of Malays are believed to be
seafarersSeafarers can refer to ethnic groups living by the sea in Southeast Asia, and also other sea-living ethnic groups in the world. The ethnic group name refers to a large distribution area, reaching from the islands of Indonesia to Burma...
knowledgeable in
oceanographyOceanography , also called oceanology or marine science, is the branch of Earth science that studies the ocean...
. They moved around from island to island in great distances between
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Māori named New Zealand Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud...
and
MadagascarMadagascar, or Republic of Madagascar , is an island nation in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa. The main island, also called Madagascar, is the fourth-largest island in the world, and is home to 5% of the world's plant and animal species, of which more than 80% are endemic to...
, and they served as navigation guide, crew and labour to Indian, Persian and Chinese traders for nearly 2000 years. Over the years they settled at various places and adopted various cultures and religions. Notable Malay seafarers of today are
MokenThe Moken , are an Austronesian ethnic group with about 2,000 to 3,000 members who maintain a nomadic, sea-based culture. They speak their own language which belongs to the Austronesian language family.-Nomenclature:They refer to themselves as Moken...
and
Orang lautThe Orang Laut, or Bajau Laut are a group of Malay people living in the Riau Islands of Indonesia. Broadly speaking, the term encompasses the numerous tribes and groups inhabiting the islands and estuaries in the Riau-Lingga Archipelagos, the Pulau Tujuh Islands, the Batam Archipelago, and the...
.
Some historians suggested they were descendants of Austronesian-speakers who migrated from the
PhilippinesThe Philippines officially known as the Republic of the Philippines, is a country in Southeast Asia with Manila as its capital city. It comprises 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean....
and originally came from
TaiwanTaiwan , also known as Formosa , is the largest island of the Republic of China in East Asia. Taiwan is located east of the Taiwan Strait, off the southeastern coast of mainland China...
. Malay culture reached its golden age during Srivijayan times and they practiced
BuddhismBuddhism, as traditionally conceived, is a path of salvation attained through insight into the ultimate nature of reality. It encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha...
,
HinduismHinduism is the predominant religion of the Indian subcontinent. Hinduism is often referred to as ', a Sanskrit phrase meaning "the eternal law", by its adherents. Generic "types" of Hinduism that attempt to accommodate a variety of complex views span folk and Vedic Hinduism to bhakti tradition, as...
, and their native
AnimismAnimism is a philosophical, religious or spiritual idea that souls or spirits exist not only in humans but also in other animals, plants, rocks, natural phenomena such as thunder, geographic features such as mountains or rivers, or other entities of the natural environment, a proposition also...
before converting to Islam in the 15th century.
Etymology
In the History of Jambi, the word Melayu originated from a river with name Melayu River near to
Batang Hari RiverThe Batang Hari is the longest river in Sumatra, Indonesia. It originates in the Minangkabau highlands and flows to the east coast of Sumatra. The city of Jambi is located at the mouth of the river....
of today's Muara Jambi, Jambi province 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 .-Etymology:Sumatra was known in ancient times by the Sanskrit...
, Indonesia and even a
Melayu KingdomMelayu Kingdom was a classical Southeast Asian kingdom that existed between the 4th and the 13th century of the common era. It was established around present-day Jambi on Sumatra, Indonesia. The location is approximately 200km north of Palembang...
existed from the record of
Yi JingThe Chinese term Yi Jing may refer to:* I Ching, one of the Five Classics* I Ching , a Tang Dynasty Buddhist monk...
(a Tang Dynasty Buddhist monk) and archaeological research of Jambi, large numbers of ancient artifacts and ancient architectures of the Melayu Kingdom have been found with photo evidence. However further tracing the root of the word, a small town in Tamil district appeared called
Malai Yur which means "Land of Mountains" (
malai means mountain and
yur means land), a reference to the hilly nature of the
Malay ArchipelagoThe Malay Archipelago and Maritime Southeast Asia are names given to the archipelago located between mainland Southeastern Asia and Australia. Located between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the group of 20,000 islands is the world's largest archipelago by area...
. Other ancient Indian sources , the Purana text, claimed "Malayadvipa" on Sumatra with the meaning 'dvipa' land surrounded by water, while the ancient
SanskritSanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India. It is also declared as a classical language by the government of India....
word Himalaya means 'snow mountain'. "Maleu-kolon" was used by
PtolemyClaudius Ptolemaeus , known in English as Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Greek ancestry. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer and a poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under the Roman Empire, and is believed to have been born in the town of...
which was also derived from Sanskrit 'malayakom' or 'malaikurram', according to G. E. Gerini that was to refer to Tanjung Kuantan while Roland Bradell claimed it on Tanjung Penyabung, both in the peninsula. (see
Tamil place names in MalaysiaOne of a few theories stated the word Malaya is a combination of two Tamil words, Malay or Malai and ur meaning hilltown” . According to Dr. Thriunavukkarasu the word Malaysia means the Mountains of Asia...
)
The word Melayu began in use during the time of Sultanate of Melaka, founded by the fleeing prince Parameswara, from the declining Melayu Kingdom of
SrivijayaSrivijaya or Sriwijaya was an ancient Malay kingdom on the island of Sumatra, Southeast Asia which influenced much of the Maritime 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 months...
in Palembang. And the word was in popular use in 17th century onwards.
During the European colonization, the word "Malay" was adopted into
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
via the Dutch word "Malayo", itself from
PortuguesePortuguese is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia and northern Portugal. It is derived from the Latin spoken by the romanized Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula around 2000 years ago...
"Malaio", which originates from the Malay word "Melayu". According to one popular theory, the word Melayu means "migrating" or "fleeing", which might refer to the high mobility of these people across the region (cf.
JavaneseJavanese language is the language of the people in 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...
verb 'mlayu' means "to run", cognate with Malay verb 'melaju', means "to accelerate") or perhaps the original meaning is "distant, far away" (cf. Tagalog 'malayo') with the root word 'layo', which means 'distance' or 'far' in Tagalog and some
Malayo-Polynesian languagesThe Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 351 million speakers. These are widely dispersed throughout the island nations of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean, with a smaller number in continental Asia...
.
Chinese sources
Early Chinese text "Ma-la-yu" (Chinese: 末羅瑜) written by monk
Yi JingI Ching or Yi Jing was a Tang Dynasty Buddhist monk, originally named Zhang Wen Ming...
was an independent kingdom. In later dynasties, such as the Mongol
Yuan DynastyThe Yuan Dynasty , or Great Yuan Empire was both the continuation of the Mongol Empire and the Mongol founded historical state in Mongolia and China, lasting officially from 1271 to 1368. Although the dynasty was established by Kublai Khan, he had his grandfather Genghis Khan placed on the...
and the
Ming DynastyThe Ming Dynasty , or 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...
, the word
Ma-La-Yu was mentioned often (in the history of China) to refer to a nation from southern sea with different spelling due to the change of dynasty.
- (Chinese: 木剌由) - Bok-la-yu, Mok-la-yu
- (Chinese: 麻里予兒) - Ma-li-yu-er
- (Chinese: 巫来由) - Oo-lai-yu (traced from the written source of monk Xuan Zang)
- (Chinese: 無来由) - Wu-lai-yu
Kedah and Melaka literature
According to
Kedah AnnalsHikayat Merong Mahawangsa or The Kedah Annals is an ancient Malay literature that chronicles the bloodline of Merong Mahawangsa and the foundation of the Kedah, a state in Malaysia. Though there are historical accuracies, there are many incredible assertions...
,
KadaramKadaram or Kedah Kingdom was founded by Maharaja Derbar Raja of Gemeron, Persia, around 630 CE. The Persian-Hinduism dynasty ended with Phra Ong Mahawangsa converted to Islam and the Sultanate of Kedah continue to rule until today....
(Kedah Kingdom 630-1136) was founded by Maharaja Derbar Raja of
GemeronBandar-Abbas or Bandar-e ‘Abbās is a port city and capital of Hormozgān Province on the southern coast of Iran , on the Persian Gulf...
, Persia around 630 CE, and also alleged that the bloodline of Kedah royalties coming from
Alexander The GreatAlexander III of Macedon, popularly known as Alexander the Great , was an Ancient Greek king of Macedon who created one of the largest empires in ancient history...
. The other Malay literature,
Sejarah MelayuSejarah Melayu or Malay Annals is a Malay literary work that chronicles the genealogies of rulers in the Malay archipelago and spans a period of over 600 years...
too alleged that they were the descendants of Alexander The Great.
Deutero Malays
Combination of the colonial Kambujas of
HinduA Hindu is an adherent of Hinduism, a set of religious, philosophical and cultural systems that originated in the Indian subcontinent. The vast body of Hindu scriptures, divided into Śruti and Smriti , lay the foundation of Hindu beliefs which primarily include dhárma, kárma, ahimsa and saṃsāra...
-
BuddhismBuddhism, as traditionally conceived, is a path of salvation attained through insight into the ultimate nature of reality. It encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha...
faith, the Indo-Persian royalties and traders as well as traders from southern
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
and elsewhere along the
ancient trade routesA trade route is a logistical network identified as a series of pathways and stoppages used for the commercial transport of cargo. Allowing goods to reach distant markets, a single trade route contains long distance arteries which may further be connected to several smaller networks of commercial...
, these peoples together with the aborigine
NegritoThe term Negrito refers to several ethnic groups in isolated parts of Southeast Asia.Their current populations include the Aeta, Agta, Ayta, Pygmies, Ita, Baluga, Ati, Dumagat and at least 25 other tribes of the Philippines, the Semang of the Malay peninsula, the Mani of Thailand and 12 Andamanese...
Orang AsliOrang Asli is a general term used for any indigenous groups that are found in Peninsular Malaysia. They are divided into three main tribal groups – Semang , Senoi, and Proto-Malay . The Orang Asli are further divided into 18 sub-ethnic group according to their different languages and customs...
and native seafarers and Proto Malays intermarried each others and thus a new group of peoples was formed and became to be known as the Deutero Malays, today they are commonly known as the
MalaysMalays may refer to:* Ethnic Malays, the ethnic group located primarily in the Malay peninsula, and parts of Sumatra and Borneo.* Malay race, a racial category encompassing peoples of South East Asia and sometimes the Pacific Islands....
.
Alternate uses of the term
The name
Malay is sometimes used to describe the concept of a
Malay raceThe concept of a Malay race was proposed by the German scientist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach . Since Blumenbach, many anthropologists have rejected his theory of five races, citing the enormous complexity of classifying races. However, the term Malay is still often used in this context, and it is...
, which includes all the ethnic groups inhabiting the
Malay ArchipelagoThe Malay Archipelago and Maritime Southeast Asia are names given to the archipelago located between mainland Southeastern Asia and Australia. Located between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the group of 20,000 islands is the world's largest archipelago by area...
and which are not of older aboriginal stock.
The term
Melayu (Malay person in the Malay Language), in the Federal Constitution of Malaysia, refers to a person who professes
IslamIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
, habitually speaks the
Malay languageMalay is a group of languages closely related to each other to the point of mutual intelligibility but that linguists consider to be separate languages. They are grouped into a group called "Local Malay", part of a larger group called "Malayan" within the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the...
, conforms to Malay custom and who has at least one ancestor from the Malay Peninsula or Singapore.
Ethnic group vs. cultural sphere
The term "Malay" can refer to the ethnic group who live in the Malay peninsula (which include the southernmost part of Thailand called Patani and Satun) and east
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 .-Etymology:Sumatra was known in ancient times by the Sanskrit...
as well as the cultural sphere that encompass a large part of the archipelago.
The Malay ethnic group is the majority in
MalaysiaMalaysia is a country in Southeast Asia that consists of thirteen states and three Federal Territories, with a total landmass of . The capital city is Kuala Lumpur, while Putrajaya is the seat of the federal government. The population stands at over 28 million inhabitants...
and
BruneiBrunei , officially the State of Brunei Darussalam or the Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace , is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo, in Southeast Asia...
and a sizable minority in
SingaporeSingapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island city-state located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, lying north of the equator, south of the Malaysian state of Johor and north of Indonesia's Riau Islands. At , Singapore is a microstate and the smallest nation in Southeast...
and
IndonesiaThe Republic of Indonesia is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia comprises 17,508 islands. With an estimated population of around 237 million people, it is the world's fourth most populous country, with the world's largest population of Muslims.Indonesia is a republic, with an...
, and they form the majority in the five southernmost provinces of Thailand which historically made up the old Malay kingdom of Patani. These people speak various dialects of
Malay languageMalay is a group of languages closely related to each other to the point of mutual intelligibility but that linguists consider to be separate languages. They are grouped into a group called "Local Malay", part of a larger group called "Malayan" within the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the...
. The peninsular dialect as spoken in the Malaysian states of Pahang, Selangor and Johor is the standard speech among Malays in Malaysia and Singapore. In the Malay peninsula, the Kelantanese dialect in its purest form is the most difficult to understand. Other peninsula dialects include the Kedah-Perlis dialect, the Melakan dialect, the Minangkabau dialect of Negeri Sembilan, the Perak dialect and the Terengganu dialect. In Thailand, Malays of Satun speak the Kedah-Perlis dialect while those in the Patani provinces speak the Kelantanese lingo. Meanwhile, the Riau dialect of eastern Sumatra has been adopted as a national tongue,
IndonesianIndonesian is the official national language of Indonesia. It is based on a version of Classical Malay of the Riau-Johor Sultanate. It was first declared the official language with the declaration of Indonesian independence in 1945, following the 1928 unifying-language declaration in the...
, for the whole Indonesian population.The ethnic Malay have had a
Muslim:A Muslim , , is an adherent of the religion of Islam. The feminine form is Muslimah . Literally, the word means "one who submits ". Muslim is the participle of the same verb of which Islam is the infinitive. Muslims believe that there is only one God, translated in Arabic as Allah...
culture since the 15th century.
In Malaysia, the majority of the population is made up of ethnic Malays while the minorities consist of southern Chinese (e.g. Hokkien and
CantoneseThe Cantonese people are Han people whose ancestral homes are in Guangdong, China. The term "Cantonese people" would then be synonymous with the Bun Dei subethnic group, and is sometimes known as Gwong Fu Jan for this narrower definition...
), southern Indians (mainly Tamils), non-ethnic Malay indigenous peoples (e.g.
IbanIban could be:*The Iban people , an ethnic group in Kalimantan and Sarawak*The Iban language spoken by those people...
and
KadazanThe Kadazans are an ethnic group indigenous to the state of Sabah in Malaysia,early they came from Mongolia and mixed with Tiong-kok. They are found mainly on the west coast of Sabah, the surrounding locales, and various locations in the interior...
), as well as Eurasians.
Malay cultural influences filtered out throughout the archipelago, such as the monarchical state, religion (
HinduismHinduism is the predominant religion of the Indian subcontinent. Hinduism is often referred to as ', a Sanskrit phrase meaning "the eternal law", by its adherents. Generic "types" of Hinduism that attempt to accommodate a variety of complex views span folk and Vedic Hinduism to bhakti tradition, as...
/
BuddhismBuddhism, as traditionally conceived, is a path of salvation attained through insight into the ultimate nature of reality. It encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha...
in the first millennium AD,
IslamIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
in the second millennium), and the Malay language. The influential
SrivijayaSrivijaya or Sriwijaya was an ancient Malay kingdom on the island of Sumatra, Southeast Asia which influenced much of the Maritime 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 months...
kingdom had unified the various ethnic groups in southeast Asia into a convergent cultural sphere for almost a millennium. It was during that time that vast borrowing of Sanskrit words and concepts facilitated the advanced linguistic development of Malay as a language. Malay was the regional
lingua francaA lingua franca is a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both persons' mother tongues.Lingua franca is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic history or...
, and Malay-based
creole languagesThe 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....
existed in most trading ports in Indonesia.
See also
- List of Malays
- Malay World
- Malays in Singapore
- Ketuanan Melayu
Ketuanan Melayu is the claim that the Malay people are the tuan of Malaysia...
- Anti-Malay racism
Anti-Malay racism refers to prejudice against ethnic Malays. This is common in nations where ethnic Malays are the minority, such as Singapore and Thailand, but it also occurs in multi-racial nation of Malaysia, where the Malays are the majority.-Thailand:...
, racial prejudice against ethnic Malays.
- Malay wedding
A Malay wedding is usually performed when either one or both spouses are Malay. Malaysian law defines a Malay person as a Muslim. The traditional wedding ceremony is in two parts. The first part is the akad nikah , which is the legal and religious part of the wedding. The second part is the...
, a wedding ceremony in accordance with Malay customs.