Old Malay

	Email		Print
	Bookmark		Link

Old Malay

The Old Malay is possibly the ancestor of Malay language

Malay language

The Malay language is an Austronesian languages spoken by the Malays and people of other ethnic groups who reside in Peninsular Malaysia, southern Thailand, Singapore, central eastern Sumatra, the Riau Islands and parts of the coast of Borneo....
, including Indonesian

Indonesian language

Indonesian is the official national language of Indonesia. It is based on a version of Malay language from the Riau islands in western Indonesia, today called Riau Indonesian....
. It was heavily influenced by Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Sanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India....
, the lingua franca

Lingua franca

A 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....
of Hinduism

Hinduism

'Hinduism' is the predominant religion of the Indian subcontinent. Hinduism is often referred to as , a Sanskrit phrase meaning "the eternal dharma", by its practitioners....
and Buddhism

Buddhism

Buddhism is a family of beliefs and practices considered by most to be a religionand is based on the teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as "The Buddha" , who was born in what is today Nepal....
, as most of the Malays used to embrace these religions.

rding to The Encyclopedia of Malaysia, vol. Languages & Literature, p22, p23, the history of written Malay dates back at least 1500 years.

Discussion

Ask a question about 'Old Malay'

Start a new discussion about 'Old Malay'

Answer questions from other users

Full Discussion Forum

Encyclopedia

The Old Malay is possibly the ancestor of Malay language

Malay language

Indonesian language

Sanskrit

Sanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India....
, the lingua franca

Lingua franca

Hinduism

'Hinduism' is the predominant religion of the Indian subcontinent. Hinduism is often referred to as , a Sanskrit phrase meaning "the eternal dharma", by its practitioners....
and Buddhism

Buddhism

History

According to The Encyclopedia of Malaysia, vol. Languages & Literature, p22, p23, the history of written Malay dates back at least 1500 years. The history of Malay language

Malay language

Old Malay

The oldest dated 682 CE, is the Kedukan Bukit Inscription

Kedukan Bukit Inscription

The Kedukan Bukit Inscription was discovered by the Dutchman M. Batenburg on 29 November 1920 at Kedukan Bukit, South Sumatra, on the banks of the River Tatang, a tributary of the River Musi....
found near Palembang

Palembang

Palembang is a city of 1,286,000 in the south of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. It is the capital of the Provinces of Indonesia of South Sumatra and its metropolitan area includes more than 1,730,000 people....
, and several other inscriptions dating from 7th to 9th centuries have been found in Sumatra

Sumatra

Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the list of islands by area in the world ....
, western Java

Java

Java is an island of Indonesia and the site of its Capital city, Jakarta. Once the centre of powerful Hindu kingdoms, The spread of Islam in Indonesia , and the core of the colonial Dutch East Indies, Java now plays a dominant role in the economic and political life of Indonesia....
and others. These ancient texts are considered examples of 'Old Malay' or 'Early Malay'. All these inscriptions were in the form of Indian Pallava

Pallava

The Pallava kingdom was an ancient South Indian Tamil people kingdom with their capital at Kanchipuram. They rose in power during the reign of Mahendravarman I and Narasimhavarman I and dominated the Telugu people and northern parts of Ancient Tamil country region for about six hundred years until the end of the 9th century....
script, characterized by extensive Sanskrit loan words, which lasted until 17th century.

Transitional Period

In the transitional period, the ‘Early Modern Malay’ was found at Terengganu

Terengganu

Terengganu is a sultanate and constitutive state of federal Malaysia. The state is also known by its Arabic honorific, Darul Iman . The coastal city of Kuala Terengganu which stands at the mouth of the broad Terengganu River is both the state and royal capital as well as the largest city in Terengganu....
in the 14th century, the famous Batu Bersurat in Arabic, and in within, there was a Malay Kawi

Kawi

Kawi may refer to:*Kawi language*Kawi scriptSee also* Kavi...
text with Arabic influence, found in the inscribed stones of Pengkalan Kempas

Pengkalan Kempas

Pengkalan Kempas is a small town in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. The Pengkalan Kempas Historical Complex or Fort Kempas is located here. It is also called "Keramat Ujung Pasir"....
. The Batu Bersurat text has large number of Sanskrit terms which are now obsolete. This is a characteristic of Old Malay, the grammatical system is similar to modern Malay.

Malacca Period

At the Sultanate of Malacca ,the Malay language develops rapidly in trade and the spread of Islam and Islamic literature . The development changed the nature of the language with massive infusion of Arabic, Persian

Persian language

Hindi

Standard Hindi, also known as High Hindi, Nagari Hindi or Literary Hindi is a Standard language register of Hindi. It is one of the 22 official languages of India, and is used, along with English language, for administration of the central government....
vocabularies. The development slows down after 1511 with the fall of Malacca to Portuguese.

Late Modern Malay

Malay had developed into a major language of Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India and north of Australia....
in the 19th century. The language absorbed many loan words from Portuguese

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia and Portugal. It is derived from the Latin language spoken by the Romanization Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula around 2000 years ago....
, Dutch

Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic languages spoken by over 22 million people as a first language, and about 5 million people as a second language."1% of the EU population claims to speak Dutch well enough in order to have a conversation." Outside the European Union the number of second language speakers of Dutch is very small. Most native...
and later English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
. It became national languages of Malaysia

Malaysia

Malaysia is a federation that consists of States of Malaysia in Southeast Asia with a total landmass of . The capital city is Kuala Lumpur, while Putrajaya is the seat of the federal government....
, Indonesia

Indonesia

The Republic of Indonesia , is a transcontinental country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Comprising Islands of Indonesia, it is the world's largest Archipelago state....
and Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country microstate located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. It lies 137 kilometres north of the equator, south of the Malaysian state of Johor and north of Indonesia's Riau Islands....
after independence.