Malay language

This article is about the language on which Standard Indonesian and Malaysian are based. For the vernacular varieties and dialects of Malay, see Malayic languages. For the standard Malay used in Malaysia, see Malaysian Malay.

Not to be confused with Malayalam, a Dravidian language.

Malay
Malay-Indonesian
Bahasa Melayu بهاس ملايو
Pronunciation	[baˈha.sa məˈla.ju]
Native to	Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Thailand, Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands
Ethnicity	Malays Various ethnic groups in Indonesia (as Indonesian) (see also Malayophones)
Speakers	L1: 82 million (2004–2010) Total (L1 and L2): 200–290 million (2009) (the number including "Indonesian" speakers)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Malayic Malay
Early forms	Old Malay Classical Malay Pre-Modern Malay
Standard forms	Indonesian (as Bahasa Indonesia) Malaysian Malay
Writing system	Latin (Malay alphabet) Arabic (Jawi script) Arabic (Pegon script) (In Indonesia) Thai alphabet (in Thailand) Malay Braille Historically Pallava script, Kawi script, Ulu scripts, Rejang script
Signed forms	Manually Coded Malay
Official status
Official language in	Brunei Indonesia (as Indonesian) Malaysia Singapore UNESCO (as Indonesian)
Recognised minority language in	Indonesia (beside the national standard of Indonesian, Local Malay enjoys the status of a regional language in Sumatra and Kalimantan East Timor (beside Dili Malay, Indonesian used as a working language and a trade language with Indonesia) Thailand (as Pattani Malay, Syburi Malay, and Bangkok Malay)
Regulated by	Language Development and Fostering Agency in Indonesia Institute of Language and Literature in Malaysia Language and Literature Bureau in Brunei Malay Language Council in Singapore MABBIM (a trilateral joint venture)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	ms
ISO 639-2	may (B) msa (T)
ISO 639-3	msa – inclusive code Individual codes: zlm – Malay (individual language) ind – Indonesian zsm – Standard Malay abs – Ambon Malay mbf – Baba Malay pea – Baba Indonesian mhp – Balinese Malay bjn – Banjarese mfb – Bangka btj – Bacan bew – Betawi bve – Berau kxd – Brunei Malay ccm – Chetty Malay coa – Cocos Malay liw – Col goq – Gorap hji – Haji jax – Jambi Malay vkk – Kaur meo – Kedah Malay mfa – Kelantan-Pattani Malay kvr – Kerinci mqg – Kota Bangun Kutai mkn – Kupang Malay mfp – Makassar Malay xmm – Manado Malay min – Minangkabau mui – Musi zmi – Negeri Sembilan
Glottolog	nucl1806
Linguasphere	31-MFA-a
Areas where Malay-Indonesian is spoken:   Indonesia   Malaysia   Singapore and Brunei, where Standard Malay is an official language   East Timor, where Dili Malay is a Malay creole language and Indonesian is used as a working language   Southern Thailand and the Cocos Isl., where other varieties of Malay are spoken

Malay (/məˈleɪ/ mə-LAY; 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 (around 260 million in Indonesia alone in its own literary standard named "Indonesian") across Maritime Southeast Asia.

The language is pluricentric and a macrolanguage, 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.

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.

Origin

Malay historical linguists agree on the likelihood of the Malayic homeland being in western Borneo. 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.

History

Main article: History of the Malay language

Map of the expansion of the Srivijaya empire, beginning in Palembang in the 7th century, then extending to most of Sumatra, then expanding to Java, Riau Islands, Bangka Belitung, Singapore, Malay Peninsula (also known as: Kra Peninsula), Thailand, Cambodia, South Vietnam, Kalimantan, Sarawak, Brunei, Sabah, and ended as the Kingdom of Dharmasraya in Jambi in the 13th century.

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.

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 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.

Other evidence is the Tanjung Tanah Law in post-Pallava letters. 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.

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. 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.

Classification

See also: Austronesian languages § Comparison charts

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.

Writing system

Main article: Malay alphabet

The Rencong alphabet, a native writing system found in central and South Sumatra. The text reads (Voorhoeve's spelling): "haku manangis ma / njaru ka'u ka'u di / saru tijada da / tang [hitu hadik sa]", which is translated by Voorhoeve as: "I am weeping, calling you; though called, you do not come" (hitu adik sa- is the rest of 4th line.

Kedukan Bukit Inscription, using Pallava alphabet, is the oldest surviving specimen of the Old Malay language in South Sumatra, Indonesia.

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.

Final pages of the Taj al-Salatin, The Crown of Kings, a Malay "mirror for princes", copied by Muhammad bin Umar Syaikh Farid on 31 July 1824 CE in Penang in Jawi script. British Library

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.

Extent of use

See also: Malay trade and creole languages and Pluricentric language

A Malay traffic sign in Malaysia.

Indonesian road signs in Jakarta, Indonesia. The blue sign reads "Lajur Khusus Menurunkan Penumpang" which means "Lane for dropping passengers only" and the small no-parking sign on the left reads "Sampai Rambu Berikutnya" which means "until next sign" in Indonesian

Malay is spoken in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, East Timor, Singapore and southern Thailand. Indonesia regulates its own normative variety of Malay, while Malaysia and Singapore use a common standard. 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. 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.

Phonology

Main article: Malay phonology

Malay, like most Austronesian languages, is not a tonal language.

Consonants

The consonants of Malaysian and also Indonesian are shown below. Non-native consonants that only occur in borrowed words, principally from Arabic, Dutch and English, are shown in brackets.

Malay consonant phonemes

		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:

• /ð/ is 'z', the same as the /z/ sound (only occurs in Arabic loanwords originally containing the /ð/ sound, but the writing is not distinguished from Arabic loanwords with /z/ sound, and this sound must be learned separately by the speakers).
• /ɲ/ is 'ny'; 'n' before 'c' and 'j'
• /ŋ/ is 'ng'
• /θ/ is represented as 's', the same as the /s/ sound (only occurs in Arabic loanwords originally containing the /θ/ sound, but the writing is not distinguished from Arabic loanwords with /s/ sound, and this sound must be learned separately by the speakers). Previously (before 1972), this sound was written 'th' in Standard Malay (not Indonesian)
• the glottal stop /ʔ/ is final 'k' or an apostrophe ' (although some words have this glottal stop in the middle, such as rakyat)
• /tʃ/ is 'c'
• /dʒ/ is 'j'
• /ʃ/ is 'sy'
• /x/ is 'kh'
• /j/ is 'y'
• /q/ is 'k'

Loans from Arabic:

• Phonemes which occur only in Arabic loans may be pronounced distinctly by speakers who know Arabic. Otherwise they tend to be replaced with native sounds.

Table of borrowed Arabic consonants

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"

Vowels

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/. Many words are commonly pronounced variably, with either [i, u] or [e, o], and relatively few words require a mid vowel [e, o].

Table of vowel phonemes of Standard Malay

	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. 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.

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.

Comparison of several standard pronunciations of Malay

	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.

Final /a/ mutation in Malay-Indonesian dialects and nearby Austronesian languages

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

Grammar

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.

Vocabulary and borrowed words

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).

Varieties and related languages

Main article: Malayic languages

Jakartan Creole Malay (Betawi language)

There is a group of closely related languages spoken by Malays and related peoples across Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Southern Thailand, Kampung Alor in East Timor, and the far southern parts of the Philippines. They have traditionally been classified as Malay, Para-Malay, and Aboriginal Malay, but this reflects geography and ethnicity rather than a proper linguistic classification. The Malayan languages are mutually intelligible to varying extents, though the distinction between language and dialect is unclear in many cases.

Para-Malay includes the Malayan languages of Sumatra. They are: Minangkabau, Central Malay (Bengkulu), Pekal, Talang Mamak, Musi (Palembang), Negeri Sembilan (Malaysia), and Duano’.

Aboriginal Malay are the Malayan languages spoken by the Orang Asli (Proto-Malay) in Malaya. They are Jakun, Orang Kanaq, Orang Seletar, and Temuan.

The other Malayan languages, included in neither of these groups, are associated with the expansion of the Malays across the archipelago. They include Malaccan Malay (Malaysian and Indonesian), Kedah Malay, Kedayan/Brunei Malay, Berau Malay, Bangka Malay, Jambi Malay, Kutai Malay, Natuna Malay, Riau Malay, Loncong, Pattani Malay, and Banjarese. Menterap may belong here.

There are also several Malay-based creole languages, such as Betawi, Cocos Malay, Makassar Malay, Ambonese Malay, Dili Malay, Kupang Malay, Manado Malay, Papuan Malay, Pattani Malay, Satun Malay, Songkhla Malay, Bangkok Malay, and Sabah Malay, which may be more or less distinct from standard (Malaccan) Malay.

Due to the early settlement of a Cape Malay community in Cape Town, who are now known as Coloureds, numerous Classical Malay words were brought into Afrikaans.

Usages

The Alamat Langkapuri from British Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka). Initially published between 1869 and 1870 and written in Jawi script, it is noted to be among the first Malay-language newspaper. The readership consist of the Malay-diaspora in Ceylon as well as in the Malay archipelago.

The extent to which Malay and related Malayan languages are used in the countries where it is spoken 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 West 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 of Malaysia.

In Singapore, Malay was historically the lingua franca among people of different nationalities. Although this has largely given way to English, Malay still retains the status of national language and the national anthem, Majulah Singapura, is entirely in Malay. In addition, parade commands in the military, police and civil defence are given only in Malay.

Most residents of the five southernmost provinces of Thailand—a region that, for the most part, used to be part of an ancient Malay kingdom called Pattani—speak a dialect of Malay called Yawi (not to be confused with Jawi), which is similar to Kelantanese Malay, but the language has no official status or recognition.

Owing to earlier contact with the Philippines, Malay words—such as dalam hati (sympathy), luwalhati (glory), tengah hari (midday), sedap (delicious)—have evolved and been integrated into Tagalog and other Philippine languages.

Indonesian speaker

By contrast, Indonesian has successfully become the lingua franca for its disparate islands and ethnic groups, in part because the colonial language, Dutch, is no longer commonly spoken. (In East Timor, which was governed as a province of Indonesia from 1976 to 1999, Indonesian is widely spoken and recognized under its Constitution as a 'working language'.)

Malaysian speaker

Besides Indonesian, which developed from the Malaccan dialect, there are many Malay varieties spoken in Indonesia; they are divided into western and eastern groups. Western Malay dialects are predominantly spoken in Sumatra and Borneo, which itself is divided into Bornean and Sumatran Malay; some of the most widely spoken Sumatran Malay dialects are Riau Malay, Langkat, Palembang Malay and Jambi Malay. Minangkabau, Kerinci and Bengkulu are believed to be Sumatran Malay descendants. Meanwhile, the Jakarta dialect (known as Betawi) also belongs to the western Malay group.

A young man speaks Kedah Malay

The eastern varieties, classified either as dialects or creoles, are spoken in the eastern part of the Malay or Nusantara archipelago and include Makassar Malay, Manado Malay, Ambonese Malay, North Moluccan Malay, Kupang Malay, Dili Malay, and Papuan Malay.

The differences among both groups are quite observable. For example, the word kita means 'we, us' in western, but means 'I, me' in Manado, whereas 'we, us" in Manado is torang and Ambon katong (originally abbreviated from Malay kita orang 'we people'). Another difference is the lack of possessive pronouns (and suffixes) in eastern dialects. Manado uses the verb pe and Ambon pu (from Malay punya 'to have') to mark possession. So 'my name' and 'our house" are translated in western Malay as namaku and rumah kita but kita pe nama and torang pe rumah in Manado and beta pu nama, katong pu rumah in Ambon dialect.

The pronunciation may vary in western dialects, especially the pronunciation of words ending in the vowel 'a'. For example, in some parts of Malaysia and in Singapore, kita (inclusive 'we, us, our') is pronounced as /kitə/, in Kelantan and Southern Thailand as /kitɔ/, in Riau as /kita/, in Palembang as /kito/, in Betawi and Perak as /kitɛ/ and in Kedah and Perlis as /kitɑ/.

Batavian and eastern dialects are sometimes regarded as Malay creole, because the speakers are not ethnically Malay.

Examples

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).

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

English	Malay
	Indonesian	Standard "Malay"
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.)

See also

• Comparison of Standard Malay and Indonesian
• Indonesian language
• Jawi script, an Arabic alphabet for Malay
• Languages of Indonesia
• List of English words of Malay origin
• Malajoe Batawi
• Malaysian English, the English used formally in Malaysia
• Malaysian language

Further reading

• Adelaar, K. Alexander (2004). "Where does Malay come from? Twenty years of discussions about homeland, migrations and classifications". Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde. 160 (1): 1–30. doi:10.1163/22134379-90003733. hdl:11343/122869. JSTOR 27868100.
• B., C. O. (1939). "Corrigenda and Addenda: A Chinese Vocabulary of Malacca Malay Words and Phrases Collected between A.D. 1403 and 1511 (?)". Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London. 10 (1). JSTOR 607921.
• Braginsky, Vladimir, ed. (2013) [First published 2002]. Classical Civilizations of South-East Asia. Oxford: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-84879-7.
• Edwards, E. D.; Blagden, C. O. (1931). "A Chinese Vocabulary of Malacca Malay Words and Phrases Collected between A. D. 1403 and 1511 (?)". Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London. 6 (3): 715–749. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00093204. JSTOR 607205. S2CID 129174700.
• Wilkinson, Richard James (1901–1903). A Malay-English Dictionary. Singapore: Kelly & Walsh.

External links

• Swadesh list of Malay words
• Digital version of Wilkinson's 1926 Malay-English Dictionary
• Pusat Rujukan Persuratan Melayu, online Malay language database provided by the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka
• Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia dalam jaringan (Online Great Dictionary of the Indonesian Language published by Pusat Bahasa, in Indonesian only)
• Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (Institute of Language and Literature Malaysia, in Malay only)
• The Malay Spelling Reform, Asmah Haji Omar, (Journal of the Simplified Spelling Society, 1989-2 pp. 9–13 later designated J11)
• Malay Chinese Dictionary
• Malay English Dictionary
• Malay English Translation