Malaysian language
Encyclopedia
Malaysian or Standard Malay is the official language
Official language
An 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 and a standardized form of the Malay language
Malay language
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...

 of the Austronesian family. It is over 80% cognate with 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....

 and is spoken natively by over 10 million people. As a second language, it is spoken by an estimated 18 million, mostly Malaysians from ethnic minorities.

History

In 1957, Article 152 of the Federation designated Malay as the official language. Between 1986 and 2007, the official term Bahasa Malaysia was replaced by "Bahasa Melayu". Today, Bahasa Malaysia is now once again the government's preferred designation for the "Bahasa Kebangsaan" (National Language). The language is sometimes simply referred to as Bahasa or BM.

Writing system

The Malaysian language is normally written using Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...

 called Rumi, although a modified Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic 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...

 script called Jawi also exists. Rumi is official while efforts are currently being undertaken to preserve Jawi script and to revive its use in Malaysia. The Latin alphabet, however, is still the most commonly used script in Malaysia, both for official and informal purposes.

Extent of use

The Malaysian language became the sole official language in West Malaysia in 1968, and in East Malaysia
East Malaysia
East 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. English
English language
English 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.

Borrowed words

The Malaysian language has many words borrowed from Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic 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
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , 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...

, Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil 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...

, Hindi, Persian, Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese 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...

, Dutch, certain Chinese dialects
Chinese language
The 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). Modern Malaysian malay also heavily influenced by Indonesian.

Colloquial and contemporary usage

Contemporary usage of Malay includes a set of slang words, formed by innovations of standard Malay words or incorporated from other languages, spoken by the urban speech community, which may not be familiar to the older generation, such as awek (girl), balak (guy) or cun (pretty). New plural pronouns have also been formed out of the original pronouns and the word orang (person), such as kitorang (kita + orang, the exclusive
Clusivity
In linguistics, clusivity is a distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person pronouns and verbal morphology, also called inclusive "we" and exclusive "we"...

 "we", in place of kami) or diorang (dia + orang, "they"). Code-switching between English and Malaysian and the use of novel loanwords is widespread, forming Bahasa Rojak
Bahasa Rojak
The term Bahasa Rojak defines the Malaysian practice of code-switching among two or more languages on a Malay base.-History:...

. Consequently, this phenomenon has raised the displeasure of language purists in Malaysia, in their effort to uphold the proper use of the national language.

See also

  • Differences between the Malaysian and Indonesian languages
    Differences between Malay and Indonesian
    The differences between Malaysian or Malay and Indonesian are significantly greater than those between British English and American English...

  • Indonesian language
    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 adapted Arabic alphabet
    Arabic alphabet
    The Arabic alphabet or Arabic abjad is the Arabic script as it is codified for writing the Arabic language. It is written from right to left, in a cursive style, and includes 28 letters. Because letters usually stand for consonants, it is classified as an abjad.-Consonants:The Arabic alphabet has...

     for Malay
  • Language politics
    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...

  • Malaysian English
    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.
  • Varieties of Malay

External links

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