Malay Language - Origin

Origin

The Malay language originated in Sumatra, where it has its closest relatives such as Minangkabau. The oldest inscriptions in Malay, Kedukan Bukit Inscription, dating from the end of the 7th century AD, were found on the banks of the River Tatang, a tributary of the River Musi, South Sumatra. It is the oldest surviving specimen of the Malay language, in a form known as Old Malay. "Malayu" was the name of an old kingdom located in Jambi province in eastern Sumatra, it was known in ancient Chinese texts as "Mo-lo-yo".

The use of Malay as a lingua franca throughout the Malay Archipelago is linked to the rise of Muslim kingdoms and the spread of Islam, itself a consequence of growing regional trade. A literary language was established in Malacca. After the defeat of Malacca by the Portuguese in 1511, the literary center shifted to the Johor Sultanate, and the literary language is therefore often called Johor Malay, though it is a continuation of Malacca Malay. When Johor was divided between British Malaya (Johor) and the Dutch East Indies (Riau), its language was accorded official status in both territories.

Indonesia pronounced "Riau" (Malacca–Johor) Malay its official language (Bahasa Indonesia) when it gained independence. Since 1928, nationalists and young people throughout the Indonesian archipelago had declared Malay to be Indonesia's only official language, as proclaimed in the Sumpah Pemuda "Youth Vow." Thus Indonesia was the first country to designate Malay as an official language.

In Malaysia, the 1957 Article 152 of the Federation adopted Johor (Malacca) Malay as the official language (Bahasa Malaysia). The name "Malaysia", in both language and country, emphasized that the nation consisted of more than just ethnic Malays. In 1986 the official name was changed to Bahasa Melayu, but in 2007 it was changed back.

"Bahasa Melayu" was defined as Brunei's official language in the country's 1959 Constitution. It is also based on the Malaccan standard.

The Indonesian and Malaysian registers of Malay are separated by some centuries of different vocabulary development (see Differences between Malaysian and Indonesian). This is, in part, partly due to the influence of different colonial languages; Dutch in the case of Indonesia (see Dutch East Indies), and English in the case of Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei, which were formerly under British rule. However, Indonesia and Malaysia largely unified their previously divergent orthographies in 1972, and they along with Brunei have set up a joint commission to develop common scientific and technical vocabulary and otherwise cooperate to keep their standards convergent.

Some Malay dialects, however, show only limited mutual intelligibility with the standard language; for example, Kelantanese or Sarawakian pronunciation is difficult for many fellow Malaysians to understand, while Indonesian contains many words unfamiliar to speakers of Malaysian, some because of Javanese, Sundanese or other local language influence, and some because of slang.

The language spoken by the Peranakan (Straits Chinese, a hybrid of Chinese settlers from the Ming Dynasty and local Malays) is a unique patois of Malay and the Hokkien Chinese, which is mostly spoken in the former Straits Settlements of Penang and Malacca in Malaysia, and the Indonesian Archipelago.