Malay (/məˈleɪ/ mə-LAY;[9] Malay: Bahasa Melayu, Jawi: بهاس ملايو) is an Austronesian language that is an official language of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, and that is also spoken in East Timor and parts of Thailand. Altogether, it is spoken by 290 million people (including 260 million as "Indonesian") across Maritime Southeast Asia.[10][11]
The language is pluricentric, i.e., several varieties of it are standardized as the national language (bahasa kebangsaan or bahasa nasional) of several nation states with various official names: in Malaysia, it is designated as either Bahasa Malaysia ("Malaysian") or also Bahasa Melayu ("Malay language"); in Singapore and Brunei, it is called Bahasa Melayu ("Malay language"); in Indonesia, an autonomous normative variety called Bahasa Indonesia ("Indonesian language") is designated the bahasa persatuan/pemersatu ("unifying language" or lingua franca) whereas the term "Malay" (bahasa Melayu) is domestically restricted to vernacular varieties of Malay indigenous to areas of Central to Southern Sumatra and West Kalimantan.[12][b]
Classical Malay, also called Court Malay, was the literary standard of the pre-colonial Malacca and Johor Sultanates and so the language is sometimes called Malacca, Johor or Riau Malay (or various combinations of those names) to distinguish it from the various other Malayic languages. According to Ethnologue 16, several of the Malayic varieties they currently list as separate languages, including the Orang Asli varieties of Peninsular Malay, are so closely related to standard Malay that they may prove to be dialects. There are also several Malay trade and creole languages (e.g. Ambonese Malay) based on a lingua franca derived from Classical Malay as well as Makassar Malay, which appears to be a mixed language.
Malay historical linguists agree on the likelihood of the Malayic homeland being in western Borneo.[14] A form known as Proto-Malayic was spoken in Borneo at least by 1000 BCE, it has been argued to be the ancestral language of all subsequent Malayic languages. Its ancestor, Proto-Malayo-Polynesian, a descendant of the Proto-Austronesian language, began to break up by at least 2000 BCE, possibly as a result of the southward expansion of Austronesian peoples into Maritime Southeast Asia from the island of Taiwan.[15]
Main article: History of the Malay language |
The history of the Malay language can be divided into five periods: Old Malay, the Transitional Period, the Classical Malay, Late Modern Malay and Modern Malay. Old Malay is believed to be the actual ancestor of Classical Malay.[16]
Old Malay was influenced by Sanskrit, the classical language of India. Sanskrit loan words can be found in Old Malay vocabulary. The earliest known stone inscription in the Old Malay language was found in Sumatra, Indonesia, written in the Pallava variety of the Grantha alphabet[17] and is dated 1 May 683. Known as the Kedukan Bukit inscription, it was discovered by the Dutchman M. Batenburg on 29 November 1920 at Kedukan Bukit, South Sumatra, on the banks of the Tatang, a tributary of the Musi River. It is a small stone of 45 by 80 centimetres (18 by 31 in). For centuries, Srivijaya, through its expansion, economic power and military prowess, was responsible for the widespread of Old Malay throughout the Malay Archipelago. It was the working language of traders and it was used in various ports, and marketplaces in the region.[18]
Other evidence is the Tanjung Tanah Law in post-Pallava letters.[19] This 14th-century pre-Islamic legal text was produced in the Adityawarman era (1345–1377) of Dharmasraya, a Hindu-Buddhist kingdom that arose after the end of Srivijayan rule in Sumatra. The laws were for the Minangkabau people, who today still live in the highlands of Sumatra, Indonesia.
Terengganu Inscription Stone (Malay: Batu Bersurat Terengganu; Jawi: باتو برسورت ترڠݢانو) is a granite stele carrying inscription in Jawi script that was found in Terengganu, Malaysia is the earliest evidence of classical Malay inscription. The inscription, dated possibly to 702 AH (corresponds to 1303 CE), constituted the earliest evidence of Jawi writing in the Malay world of Southeast Asia, and was one of the oldest testimonies to the advent of Islam as a state religion in the region. It contains the proclamation issued by a ruler of Terengganu known as Seri Paduka Tuan, urging his subjects to extend and uphold Islam and providing 10 basic Sharia laws for their guidance.
The classical Malay language came into widespread use as the lingua franca of the region during the Malacca Sultanate era (1402–1511). It was the 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, Sanskrit, and Tamil vocabularies, called Classical Malay. Under the Sultanate of Malacca the language evolved into a form recognisable to speakers of modern Malay. When the court moved to establish the Johor Sultanate, it continued using the classical language; it has become so associated with Dutch Riau and British Johor that it is often assumed that the Malay of Riau is close to the classical language. However, there is no closer connection between Malaccan Malay as used on Riau and the Riau vernacular.[20]
Among the oldest surviving letters written in Malay are the letters from Sultan Abu Hayat of Ternate, Maluku Islands in present-day Indonesia, dated around 1521–1522. The text is addressed to the king of Portugal, following contact with Portuguese explorer Francisco Serrão.[21] The letters show sign of non-native usage; the Ternateans used (and still use) the unrelated Ternate language, a West Papuan language, as their first language. Malay was used solely as a lingua franca for inter-ethnic communications.[21]
Malay is a member of the Austronesian family of languages, which includes languages from Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean, with a smaller number in continental Asia. Malagasy, a geographic outlier spoken in Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, is also a member of this language family. Although these languages are not necessarily mutually intelligible to any extent, their similarities are often quite apparent. In more conservative languages like Malay, many roots have come with relatively little change from their common ancestor, Proto-Austronesian language. 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 Malayic languages, 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 vernacular of Brunei—Brunei Malay—for example, is not readily intelligible with the standard language, and the same is true with some lects on the Malay Peninsula such as Kedah Malay. However, both Brunei and Kedah are quite close.[22]
Main article: Malay alphabet |
Malay is now written using the Latin script, known as Rumi in Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore or Latin in Indonesia, although an Arabic script called Arab Melayu or Jawi also exists. Latin script is official in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. Malay uses Hindu-Arabic numerals.
Rumi (Latin) and Jawi are co-official in Brunei only. Names of institutions and organisations have to use Jawi and Rumi (Latin) scripts. Jawi is used fully in schools, especially the religious school, sekolah agama, which is compulsory during the afternoon for Muslim students aged from around 6–7 up to 12–14.
Efforts are currently being undertaken to preserve Jawi in Malaysia, and students taking Malay language examinations in Malaysia have the option of answering questions using Jawi.
The Latin script, however, is the most commonly used in Brunei and 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 the Pallava, Kawi and Rencong scripts; these scripts are no longer frequently used, but similar scripts such as the Cham alphabet are used by the Chams of Vietnam and Cambodia. Old Malay 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 Malacca Sultanate, Jawi gradually replaced these scripts as the most commonly used script in the Malay region. Starting from the 17th century, under Dutch and British influence, Jawi was gradually replaced by the Rumi script.[23]
See also: Malay trade and creole languages and Pluricentric language |
Malay is spoken in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, East Timor, Singapore and southern Thailand.[24] Indonesia regulates its own normative variety of Malay, while Malaysia and Singapore use a common standard.[25] Brunei, in addition to Standard Malay, uses a distinct vernacular dialect called Brunei Malay. In East Timor, Indonesian is recognised by the constitution as one of two working languages (the other being English), alongside the official languages of Tetum and Portuguese.[8] 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 Malaysia, and became the sole official language in Peninsular Malaysia in 1968 and in East Malaysia gradually from 1974. English 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 in Malaysia. In the Philippines, Indonesian is spoken by the overseas Indonesian community concentrated in Davao City. Functional phrases are taught to members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines as well as local students.
Main article: Malay phonology |
Malay, like most Austronesian languages, is not a tonal language.
The consonants of Malaysian[26][27][28] and also Indonesian[29] are shown below. Non-native consonants that only occur in borrowed words, principally from Arabic and English, are shown in brackets.
Labial | Dental/ Alveolar |
Post‑alv./ Palatal |
Velar | Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
Stop/ Affricate |
voiceless | p | t | t͡ʃ | k | (ʔ) |
voiced | b | d | d͡ʒ | ɡ | ||
Fricative | voiceless | (f) | s | (ʃ) | (x) | h |
voiced | (v) | (z) | (ɣ) | |||
Approximant | semivowel | w | j | |||
lateral | l | |||||
Trill | r |
Orthographic note: The sounds are represented orthographically by their symbols as above, except:
Loans from Arabic:
Distinct | Assimilated | Example |
---|---|---|
/x/ | /k/, /h/ | khabar, kabar "news" |
/ð/ | /d/, /l/ | redha, rela "good will" |
/zˤ/ | /l/, /z/ | lohor, zuhur "noon (prayer)" |
/ɣ/ | /ɡ/, /r/ | ghaib, raib "hidden" |
/ʕ/ | /ʔ/ | saat, sa'at "second (time)" |
/θ/ | /s/ | Selasa "Tuesday" |
/q/ | /k/ | makam "grave" |
Malay originally had four vowels, but in many dialects today, including Standard Malay, it has six, with /i/ split into /i, e/ and /u/ split into /u, o/.[26] Many words are commonly pronounced variably, with either [i, u] or [e, o], and relatively few words require a mid vowel [e, o].
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i | u | |
Mid | e | ə | o |
Open | a |
Orthographic note: both /e/ and /ə/ are written with ⟨e⟩. Orthographic /e, o/ are relatively rare, so the letter ⟨e⟩ usually represents /ə/. There are some homographs; for example, perang is used for both /pəraŋ/ "war" and /peraŋ ~ piraŋ/ "blond". (In Indonesia, "blond" may be written perang or pirang.)
Some analyses regard /ai, au, oi/ as diphthongs.[30][31] However, [ai] and [au] can only occur in open syllables, such as cukai ("tax") and pulau ("island"). Words with a phonetic diphthong in a closed syllable, such as baik ("good") and laut ("sea"), are actually two syllables. An alternative analysis therefore treats the phonetic diphthongs [ai], [au] and [oi] as a sequence of a monophthong plus an approximant: /aj/, /aw/ and /oj/ respectively.[32]
There is a rule of vowel harmony: the non-open vowels /i, e, u, o/ in bisyllabic words must agree in height, so hidung ("nose") is allowed but *hedung is not.[33]
Johor-Riau
Pronunciation |
Northern
Pronunciation |
Baku & Indonesian
Pronunciation | |
---|---|---|---|
⟨a⟩ in final open syllable | /ə/ | /a/ | /a/ |
⟨i⟩ in final closed syllable with final ⟨n⟩ and ⟨ng⟩ | /e/ | /i/ | /i/ |
⟨i⟩ in final closed syllable with other final consonants | /e/ | /e/ | /i/ |
⟨u⟩ in final closed syllable with final ⟨n⟩ and ⟨ng⟩ | /o/ | /u/ | /u/ |
⟨u⟩ in final closed syllable with other final consonants | /o/ | /o/ | /u/ |
final ⟨r⟩ | silent | /r/ | /r/ |
Study by Uri Tadmor which was published in 2003 shows that mutation of ⟨a⟩ in final open syllable is an areal feature. Specifically, it is an areal feature of Western Austronesia. Uri Tadmor classify those types into four groups as below.[35]
Types | Phonemes | "Malay" provenance | Native languages area |
---|---|---|---|
[a] (origin) | [a] | Kedah, Brunei | Arekan (eg. Tengger), Sarawak, Sabah, Kalimantan (except Pontianak), East Indonesia |
Raised | [ə], [ɨ] | Johor, Pontianak, Tanah Abang (Jakarta) | Bali |
Rounded | [o], [ɔ] | Pattani, Palembang | Minangkabau, Mataraman (eg. Yogyakarta) |
Fronted | [ɛ], [e] | Perak, Jakarta, Sambas |
Main article: Malay grammar |
Malay is an agglutinative language, and new words are formed by three methods: attaching affixes onto a root word (affixation), formation of a compound word (composition), or repetition of words or portions of words (reduplication). Nouns and verbs may be basic roots, but frequently they are derived from other words by means of prefixes, suffixes and circumfixes.
Malay does not make use of grammatical gender, and there are only a few words that use natural gender; the same word is used for 'he' and 'she' which is dia or for 'his' and 'her' which is dia punya. There is no grammatical plural in Malay either; thus orang may mean either 'person' or 'people'. 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 voice or intentional and accidental moods.
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 agent and an object, 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.[citation needed]
Main article: List of loanwords in Malay |
The Malay language has many words borrowed from Arabic (in particular religious terms), Sanskrit, Tamil, certain Sinitic languages, Persian (due to historical status of Malay Archipelago as a trading hub), and more recently, Portuguese, Dutch and English (in particular many scientific and technological terms).
All Malay speakers should be able to understand either of the translations below, which differ mostly in their choice of wording. The words for 'article', pasal and perkara, and for 'declaration', pernyataan and perisytiharan, are specific to the Indonesian and Malaysian standards, respectively, but otherwise all the words are found in both (and even those words may be found with slightly different meanings).
English | Malay | |
---|---|---|
Indonesian[37] | Standard "Malay"[38] | |
Universal Declaration of Human Rights | Pernyataan Umum tentang Hak Asasi Manusia (General Declaration about Human Rights) |
Perisytiharan Hak Asasi Manusia Sejagat (Universal Declaration of Human Rights) |
Article 1 | Pasal 1 | Perkara 1 |
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. | Semua orang dilahirkan merdeka dan mempunyai martabat dan hak-hak yang sama. Mereka dikaruniai akal dan hati nurani dan hendaknya bergaul satu sama lain dalam semangat persaudaraan. (All human beings are born free and have the same dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should get along with each other in a spirit of brotherhood.) |
Semua manusia dilahirkan bebas dan sama rata dari segi maruah dan hak-hak. Mereka mempunyai pemikiran dan perasaan hati dan hendaklah bertindak di antara satu sama lain dengan semangat persaudaraan. (All human beings are born free and are equal in dignity and rights. They have thoughts and feelings and should get along with a spirit of brotherhood.) |