Talk:Malay language/Archive 1

"Kereta" issue

The Malay word for "car" is "kereta". potatoSince I am Russian, I couldn't have avoid noticing the odd similarity. In Russian, a "kAreta" (sounds similar) means carriage. I have no idea how a Russian word could have been adopted in Malaysia but, still, the similarity stuns me. Any ideas? 218.208.238.245 13:35, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure either, but the word kereta have been used before the europeans set foot on Malay land. It might be from sanskrit.141.213.240.242 08:04, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Nah, that word comes from the Dutch language. Its written in the Malaysian History Form 2 textbooks if you want proof.

Actually, it seems more likely to come from Portuguese carreta "carriage", "cart", given the large amount of Portuguese loanwords in Malay and the fact that it is a quite common word in Portuguese (it would be very easy to be picked up by Malays dealing with portuguese merchants, for instance). Of course, the common origin of Portuguese carreta and Russian kAreta, mentioned above, is Italian carreta, although it doesn't matter much here. Conclusion: the Malay word is from Portuguese, for sure.201.21.200.15 02:19, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Early discussion

The Indonesian universitas is actually Latin and not Dutch. In the fifties all loanwords from Dutch which end with "-iteit" were changed to "-itas" in Indonesian c.f. in Latin. Previously it was "-iteit", then "-itet".

Meursault2004 16:35, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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"bercekap" as ub speak is spelled wrong. Cekap means efficient, cakap means speak/talk. I changed it. : 219.95.162.32 09:30, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Taman haiwan?

I don't know if this makes it ungrammatical Malay-wise, but no one in Malaysia actually says "taman haiwan" anymore - they just refer to it as "zoo".

Number of speakers

According to Languages Spoken, Malay is spoken by 160 million people worldwide, an order of magnitude greater than what the article says. Which figure should be used on Wikipedia to represent the number of speakers - 7-18 million or 160 million? ~Alon. 09:36, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If that articles says 160 million, it most likely lump together speakers of the related languages Malay language (7–18 million total) and Indonesian language (17–30 million native, 140 million total). See the language genetic classification, "Local Malay" is the root for both. IANotALinguist, IAAEngineer. ;-) -- sabre23t 06:59, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Malay is a name of a race in Malaysia. Refer to the population of Malay people in Malaysian ia about 51% of about/more 25 millions. They are the origin of the country. The language been use is Malay language (abbreviation of Bahasa Malaysia.) Malay / Bahasa Malaysia is totally different than Bahasa Indonesia in sound & meanings for example :

"Selamat Petang" - Malay words for Good evening.
"Selamat Sore" - Bahasa Indonesia for Good evening.

Not every malays can speak Bahasa Indonesia fluently and vice versa eventhough they look alike.

I definitely think you are exaggerating the difference between Malay and Indonesian. The difference between, lets say for argument sake, the English spoken in Scotland and the English spoken in Australia is not that much smaller than the difference between Malay and Indonesian. It is as I have written on this talk page in the past, mostly to do with Politics that they are classified by the authorities as separate languages. It seems to me also that the number of Malay speakers given in the article is much much too low. When I consider that nearly the entire population of Malaysia speaks Malay, 15% of Singaporeans, almost all of Brunei, many areas of Indonesia..... it is hard to imagine that the 20-30 million figure is correct. Even if you define "Bahasa Melayu" very strictly as being the language as it is spoken in Kuala Lumpur, that number seems very low. If you want to be more liberal and include speakers of Malay who while sounding a little different are still mutually intelligible with the BM spoken in Kuala Lumpur, then I would think the number expands well past 50 million people. I intend to do more research on this to get better numbers. Ryan Albrey (talk) 16:15, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

"Bahasa Malaysia"

I just wanted to note that I edited the reference to "Bahasa Malaysia" as the official language of Malaysia. That designation hasn't been used for some years now, and its official name has reverted to "Bahasa Melayu." If anyone has evidence to the contrary, please let us know.

Michael

What alphabet is used?

Is it Jawi or Latin? Both? If so, which is used when? I'm still confused. --Bash 7 July 2005 19:31 (UTC)

During precolony and early colony era, Jawi is a dominant script for Malay. Due to the colonization (initiated by Portugal) roman alphabet being introduced. However Jawi's still used today only for heritage and islamic studies. most of younger generation still can read Jawi although they prefer to write in roman. Similar thing happens to almost all malayan languages (malayo-polynesians) such as javanese, sundanese and tagalogs (obviously). Zaidpjd 0.45 October 20, 2005 (UTC)

in brunei, Malay is written in both latin and jawi. I think the government here tries to preserve jawi by making it a law for establishment (institution, company, road signs but hot highway signs) to diplay their name in jawi in addition to any languages ie. either Latinised Malay, English or Chinese. Keep88 9 June 2007 08:24 (UTC+8)

Previously, the Malay, have no writing skill. Jawi is introduce to Malay during the time of Malacca straits trading between the middle east and west for the spice and the location as the heart of south east asia. During the time the middle east people has contribute the islam religion & jawi writing. Then, due to the colonization (initiated by Portugal) roman alphabet being introduced and proper education by the british and nothing by the japanese.

This is simply untrue. The Malays were using a script related to those used by some of the languages of South India prior to the advent of Islam. Prior to Jawi, Javanese used an Indic script, and presumably other Malaysian/Indonesian tribes used a similar writing system. Those areas of the Philippines not converted to Islam by the time of the arrival of the Spanish were using scripts closely related to Javanese before the transition to Latin took hold.

malay language or malaysian language?

I think there's some confusion here. This article is actually mainly about malaysian language not malay language. The reason is that the malay is regulated by mabbim (majlis bahasa brunei, indonesia dan malaysia, the council of brunei, indonesian and malaysian languages). And malaysian language is regulated by Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka Malaysia. It's true that malay language is widely spoken at Malaysia and Brunei and because of this, people usually think that malaysian language is the malay language. I think the best way to express this is that malaysian language is part of malay language. Same goes to Indonesian and Brunei's. For certain reasons, both malaysia and indonesia (I'm not sure about Bruneis') government use terminologies Malaysian and Indonesian languages (one of the reasons is that to unite these multi racial countries.) For academic reason, most of malaysian academicians use malay language in their writings and conversations. Nonetheless, malay language has broader vocabulary than malaysian language (because it is a compilation of indonesian, brunei's and malaysian). Indonesians however are in favor with their national language maybe because of their highly patriotic spirit. The pronounciation is also standardized and it's called Bahasa Baku. Bahasa Baku is widely spoken in Indonesia, East Malaysia and Brunei's. However it's not popular in West Malaysia mainly due to the heavy influence of Riau dialect or Riau language (the 'parent' of malay language). Zaidpjd 22.45 October 19 2005 (UTC)

I don't think there's any much difference between Malay language in Brunei, Singapore and Malaysia. Structurally speaking, they all have similar grammars and vocabulary and no big difference at all. Furthermore, in Brunei all Malay language academic textbook for school are written both by Malaysians and Bruneians. In Brunei, when we use the Malay language for official writings and conversations, we call it standard Malay as not to be confused with local Malay dialect in each country. I hope people stop referring Malay language as Bahasa Malaysia, because Bahasa Malaysia is (standard) Malay language.Gross 11:46, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Then, who's regulating this language? Is it Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP)? or MABBIM? Because Malay wikipedia stated that it's regulated by MABBIM, not DBP. And I'm not quite sure when you stated that Malaysian is a standard Malay language. And I already asked a linguist professor from Malaya University, he clearly said that Malaysian and Indonesian are part of Malay language. That's why Malay is regulated by MABBIM, not DBP. And talking about DBP, there's two DBP, Malaysia and Brunei and both departments regulating their own Malay languages (the Bruneis and Malaysian). 141.213.240.242 06:29, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I was not referring to Malaysian but the term Bahasa Malaysia. Bahasa Malaysia is, as the article of Malay language states, Malay language. I've seen many articles in Wikipedia stating Bahasa Malaysia for Malay language instead of Malay. Now what I meant by standard Malay is the formal usage of Malay conforming grammar structure in textbooks or schools, which are being regulated by local DBP and/or MABBIM. So hopefully people stop referring Malay as Bahasa Malaysia.Gross 08:15, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Bahasa Malaysia is the national language of Malaysia in year XXXX. Previously, it was known Bahasa Melayu during Malaysia is known as Tanah Melayu. Unfortunately, the english has associated it to the word "Malay" for malay people and language. Name of the language is been change, with more adaption of external english and others word. Example: Technology in english become technologie in Bahasa Malaysia which this term is not indicate in Bahasa Melayu. But the word of "maju ke hadapan" is origin of a malay language and many others. Today, "Bahasa Baku" is been use in commercial with obvious pronunciation of "a" sound like the Americane. Is it going to be the language after "Bahasa Malaysia" and "Bahasa Melayu"?

Constitutionally, it has always been Bahasa Melayu (ie Malay language). It has never been changed. __earth ^(Talk) 23:54, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

I have always understood Bahasa Melayu and Bahasa Malaysia to mean the same thing. The first, when literally translated simple means "The Language of the Malays" and the second means "The Language of Malaysia". Bahasa Malaysia I have always found to be a particularly chauvinistic designation used by chauvinistic malays. How can anyone in the world in this day and age of global multiculturalism say that their language is the "National Language"? If George Bush were to decide that English was from now on to be referred to as "The Language of The United States" he would be quite rightly called a racist and an idiot for ignoring the millions of Americans that do not speak English as a first language and for trying to imply, indirectly, who may call themselves completely American and who may not. However my diatribe here is not for George Bush because they do no such thing in America. They do however do exactly that in Malaysia. Almost half of the population of Malaysia do not speak Malay as their first language (although in fairness I would estimate perhaps more than 90% of Malaysians are fluent in Malay). The term "Bahasa Malaysia" is intended to marginalize and disenfranchise those that do not speak Malay as their first language. However anybody who knows anything about the politics of Malaysia understands that this is only a small example of the systemic and openly admitted effort since independence to classify some Malaysians as more Malaysian than others. Bahasa Melayu is a much better term because it is more specific. It means the language of that specific group of peoples called the Malays. Ryan Albrey 04:09, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

On the subject of Bahasa Indonesia versus Bahasa Malaysia, I have to say again, the difference is mostly motivated by politics rather than the study of linguistics. When the 2 languages are written in an official style, and the use of regional slang is avoided, they are VERY similar. Anyone that can read the Indonesian Wikipedia stands a REALLY high chance of being able to read the Malaysian Wikipedia also. This is because as Encyclopedias they make an effort to avoid the use of slang. Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia are at most different dialects of the same language. The difference between the 2 is probably less than the difference between Manglish and Standard American English and nobody would argue that those should be regarded as separate languages. They are dialects of one another. What do I mean when I say the classification is motivated by politics? Firstly, the Malaysian and Indonesian governments for reasons explained in the paragraph above want to use the terms "Bahasa Indonesia" and "Bahasa Malaysia" internally. To do this they have to make a bigger deal out of the difference between the 2 than they would if the analysis were purely linguistic. They can't use the term Bahasa Malaysia to marginalize the Chinese if "The Language of Malaysia" happens to be spoken in Indonesia also. Secondly they wish to create a point of difference between one another. Malaysia in particular, like many other countries including my homeland of Australia, has a cultural chip on its shoulder. Malaysians are very keen to prove that there is such a thing as unique malaysianess (firefox disagrees that is a word, but I say it is). So despite in many ways being very culturally and linguistically similar Indonesians and Malaysians, for nationalistic reasons, would prefer to make a big deal about the difference between Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia. However I also guess I should mention I am not linguistics expert. I merely have an interest in the language and politics of South East Asia. Everything I have written in the above 2 paragraphs is merely speculation based on my perception of the situation from my time spent in Malaysia. I would however be interested to have my argument rebutted by a genuine expert. Ryan Albrey 04:09, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps if there exists authoritative research on the matters I have raised in the above paragraphs we can add a section called "Political Influences on Language Classification"? Even if the things I have written above are disputed by experts surely there can be little dispute that not all language classifications are made for purely linguistic reasons. Frequently politics gets in the way. Is it possible we can find some way to add this to the article without adopting a POV and without using primary research? Ryan Albrey 04:39, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Dear Ryan Albrey, saying Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia are two dialects of the same language is just as linguistically foolish as saying Spanish and Italian are two dialects of the same language. Spanish and Italian are mutually intelligible, yet they are different languages. Politics might capture some reasons for the differences, yet missing others. I would suggest narrowing the definition of these terms - 'language', 'dialect', 'slang' and 'accent'...and not using them interchangably. From what you typed above, I can see that you are generally talking from a social perspective rather than a linguistic one. To justify differences between two languages, one must first erase all assumptions and then look objectively at various aspects of the languages, such as the phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicon etc. Based on scholarly research papers on linguistics, Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malaysia are two different languages. However, we must keep in mind that linguists distinguish between what are commonly labeled "dialects" and consider them different languages (e.g. American English is a different language from British English). I suggest you take a look at david crystal's encyclopedia of language for brief definitions of the terms I stated above.128.175.180.149 (talk) 22:00, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Since there are at least two different things called "Malay language", why do not we write this in the article to avoid confusion? Pls consider this (the link has been mentioned also at other part of this talkpage). Plus, pls check also the case of Scandinavian languages, which standardization lead to a lower level of intelligibility. 134.176.155.4 (Kembangraps from id: wiki) 13:28, 29 January 2008 (UTC).

Only 3 native words?

I'm not sure I'm interpreting this sentence correctly: It is said that the pure Malay words are "Beras", "Besi' and "Babi". All the other words were actually borrowed mainly from Arabic, Sanskrit, Tamil and other languages. Is that to say that the Malaysian language only has three native words, or are those names for the language? And is it actually true, or is it a joke? Rōnin 01:41, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

It is a joke for there is other words of malays such as "sayang", "kasih", "cinta" which means love. The best native word is " Terima Kasih" means thank you.

Thanks :) Rōnin 23:44, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

The theory of "Malay only have 3 pure words" is just a theory. This is because the study of Malay language by the Malayo-Polinesian or Malay Language specialists indicate that there are muuch more similar words which are grouped into Austronesian or Malayo-Polinesian survived(ancient) words. The similar words was created by Austronesian people before they dispersed to various parts of the world, South-East Asia, Madagascar, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polinesia. Even the Malay language was exist long before the arrival of Indian, Chinese, Arabian, European, and other foreign peoples which are not the Austronesian people.Master of Books 12:04, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica

" Malay is essentially, with few exceptions, a dissyllabic language, and the syllabic accent rests on the penultimate unless that syllable is open and short; e.g. datang, namaa, bhsr, diumpatkanflalah. Nothing in the form of a root word indicates the grammatical category to which it belongs; thus, kasih, kindness, affectionate, to love; ganti, a proxy, to exchange, instead of. It is only in derivative words that this vagueness is avoided. Derivation is effected by infixes, prefixes, affixes and reduplication. Infixes occur more rarely in Malay than in the cognate tongues. Examples are guruh, a rumbling noise, gumuruh, to make such a noise; tunjuli, to point, telunjuk, the forefinger; chuchuk, to pierce, cheruchuk, a stockade. The import of the prefixes me (mbng, mhfl, men, mhm), pe (peng, pen, pen, pem), ber (bel), per, phl, ka, di, thr,and affixes -- an, kan, i, lah -- will best appear from the following examples root word ajar, to teach, to learn; mengajar, to instruct (expresses an action); belajar, to study (state or condition); mengajari, to instruct (some one, trans.); mengajarkan, to instruct (in something, causative); pengajar, the instructor; pelajar, the learner; pkngajara n, the lesson taught, also the school; pelajaran, the lesson learnt; diajar, to be learnt; terajar, learnt; terajarkan, taught; terajari, instructed; [peraja (from raja, prince), to recognize as prince; perajakan, to crown as prince; karajaan, royalty]; ajarkanlah, teach! Examples of reduplication are ajar-ajar, a sainted person; ajar-berajar (or belajar), to be learning and teaching by turns; similarly there are forms like ajar-mengajar, berajar-ajaran, ajar-ajari, memperjar, mempirajarkan, memperajari, terbelajarkan, perbelajarkan, &c. Altogether there are upwards of a hundred possible derivative forms, in the idiomatic use of which the Malays exhibit much skill. See especially H. von Dewall, De vormveranderingen der Maleische taal (Batavia, 1864) and J. Pijnappel, Maleisch-Ilollandsch Woordenboek (Amsterdam, 1875), Inleiding. In every other respect the language is characterized by great simplicity and indefiniteness. There is no inflexion to distinguish number, gender or case. Number is never indicated when the sense is obvious or can be gathered from the context; otherwise plurality is expressed by adjectives such as sagala, all, and bak, many; more rarely by the repetition of the noun, and the indefinite singular by sa or stu, one, with a class-word. Gender may, if necessary, be distinguished by the words laki-laki, male, and perampilan, female, in the case of persons, and of jantan and bitina in the case of animals. The genitive case is generally indicated by the position of the word after its governing noun. Also adjectives and demonstrative pronouns have their places after the noun. Comparison is effected by the use of particles. Instead of the personal pronouns, both in their full and abbreviated forms, conventional nouns are in frequent use to indicate the social position or relation of the respective interlocutors, as, e.g. hamba tuan, the masters slave, i.e. I. These nouns vary according to the different localities. Another peculiarity of Malay (and likewise of Chinese, Shan, Talaing, Burmese and Siamese) is the use of certain classwords or coefficients with numerals, such as orang (man),when speaking of persons, ekor (tail) of animals, keping (piece) of flat things, biji (seed) of roundish things; e.g. lima biji, tilor, five eggs. The number of these class-words is considerable. Malay verbs have neither person or number nor mood or tense. The last two are sometimes indicated by particles or auxiliary verbs; but these are generally dispensed with if the meaning is sufficiently plain without them. The Malays avoid the building up of long sentences. The two main rules by which the order of the words in a sentence is regulated are subject, verb, object; and qualifying words follow those which they qualify. "

-- from the "Malay People" article in the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica -- Ancheta Wis 11:20, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Days of the Week?

Would it be worth noting that the Malay names for the days of the week (Isnin, Selasa, Rabu, etc) are also borrowed from Arabic? Personally, I find 'borrowed words' to be the most interesting section of every language article, but the list that the article has so far is quite long, and I'm not sure whether it would be relevant or overkill to add the days of the week as well. Also I'm not sure whether the names of the days of the week in Indonesian Malay are the same as Malaysian and Bruneian Malay... can anyone clarify? If the information is deemed worthy, I'll add it. Paperdoll51 03:17, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to post so late, but I think that's a good idea.

• Ahad - Yaumul Ahad The first day
• Isnin - Yaumul Isnain The second day
• Selasa - Yaumul Salasa The third day
• Rabu - Yaumul Arba'a The fourth day
• Khamis - Yaumul Khomsah The fifth day
• Jumaat - Jum'at Named because it's the day Muslims perform their Friday's prayer (Jum'ah Solah). :Could be from the word Jum'ah meaning gathering since Friday's prayer is perform in jemaah :(its like in groups) in mosques. So, perhaps Yaumul Jum'ah means the day of gathering.
• Sabtu - Yaumul Sabt The seventh day.

I think that's why in Kelantan, Terengganu and Kedah, they start weekdays from Sundays.

Hope this helps the article. Perhaps someone who can speak arabic fluently could help clarify my :translation before posting it.RiZius 14:41, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Indonesian spell some of the days differently: Senin, Selasa, Rabu, Kamis, Jum'at, Sabtu, Minggu (Ahad is rarely used). Hayabusa future 14:06, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

"Malay" vs. "Bahasa Melayu"

What is the difference within Malaysia between "Malay" and "Bahasa Melayu"??? Are these 2 official languages within the country? I always thought they were one in the same (except 1 was the English word and the other a local language name for the same thing). HOWEVER, i just came across an article in wikipedia saying that road signs in Malaysia are sometimes written in "Malay", "Bahasa Melayu" and "English". Huh?? What's the difference between the first two? I realise that linguistic academics sometimes refer to malay languages group (which includes say Indonesian), but i accept the distinction between this and the official national language of Malaysia. Rather, my specific querstion is, within Malaysia, are the languages "Malay" and "Bahasa Melayu 2" seperate languages spoken? Are they really both listed on some signs? See the 2nd paragraph of this page. --Merbabu 02:09, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Bahasa Melayu and Malay are exactly the same thing. Note that Bahasa Malaysia however refers to the standardized form of Malaysian Malay (i.e. textbook language, ignoring regional variants). Bahasa Melayu (or simply Malay) is a general term which can either be the standardized form or other variants and dialects spoken in Southeast Asia. Similarly, Bahasa Indonesia is a form of Malay (hence a form of Bahasa Melayu) which the standardized form used in Indonesia. In the Philippines, standardized Tagalog is called Filipino. --Anggerik 17:08, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

East Timor

Both this article and the Indonesian language article claim that the respective language is one of the offical working languages. Since East Timor was part of Indonesia, I bet it's Indonesian, not Malay. Should be changed here, if that't the case. JAL 82.92.15.150 11:50, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

"Derived" words in Tagalog

The part mentioning how Tagalog/Filipino borrowed Malay words does not ring entirely true.

• Sakit - common in many of the Philippine languages.
• Salamat - that will have to be researched as it may not be even Malay to begin with!
• Bihon - most likely Chinese (Hakka) and not Malay in origin. From rice noodle 米粉
• Tauhu - C'mon Tofu (?) is Malay? Of Chinese origin, lit. fermented bean 豆腐
• Tulong - Another word common in Philippine languages.
• Mangga - This is from one of the Dravidian languages of S. India. But, it's form may have come via the Portuguese.

If anything, the section should say that Tagalog (and many Philippine languages for that matter) are cognate with, not derived from, Malay.

The following link should shed some light. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austronesian_languages Joemaza 23:28, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

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some words might be the same meaning in other language but we do not know which one is right or not. but i am sure that it comes from malay because bahasa melayu is popular in malay archipelango and probably they 'trade' words that comes from bahasa melayu.

and by the way, some of them are spelt wrongly. it's tolong, not tulong and it means help. and c'mon, chinese came to malaysia and trade with them before and they showed their language to malay people, they also showed 'sempoa'(it probably comes from chinese language) to calculate things (ancient calculator) and it is still used now. bihon is a type of noodle which is thin and white. hakka is not a malay word and i know what is it and it is a noodle which is very different from what you say because the hakka noodle is not slim or whatever you call it. ok? mangga is a mango and mark it*, it is not portuguese word because since their invasion or exploration came to malaysia, they took the words and borrowed it from malay language.

bahasa melayu does not always comes from the other language like indian, chinese, portuguese and so on. we might not know because almost everything (i meant by bahasa melayu only) comes from malaysian history. you know why they come to malaysia because of silk, spice, ores and so on. philipines probably not one of them because they are in an island and they are separated. who knows?

whatever it is, malay culture and it's language (bahasa melayu) will not dissapear as well as malay archipelango which speaks almost malay language. it is not only malaysia, but the whole world like philipines, china, thailand, vietnam and southeast asian countries.

and also, not to forget that some* vietnamese, burmese and thai people (i think) can speak malay. they were called "Melayu Champa."

Bahasa Menunjukkan Bangsa... User:sayasakit092 2:48AM, November 4th 2006.

Here's MY take:

• If it's Tolong, then it's Tolong in Malay; Tulong in Tagalog, Ilokano, Sugbuanon (Cebuano) et alii. U/O were not highly differentiated in the proto language. There were only four vowels, /a/, /i/, /u/ and /ə/.

• Hakka is the name of a people from China. You didn't read the line correctly.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakka) The noodles is of question and it's name comes from the language of the Hakka. They were known to be a seafairing people and many words in the Filipino languages can be traced back to Hakka, especially words related to food and cooking. I bet if I got my hands on an accredited Malay dictionary, replete with etymologies, I'd find an entry for Bihun, and it would say Hakka or at least of Chinese origin.

• Mango is Tamil. I mentioned that it may have come via the Portuguese (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Mango). Many words that are listed in the article are of Portuguese derivation and it was a possibility.

• I didn't say that Malay should dissappear as you seem to purport.

• Also, I will repeat COGNATE; one is not derived from the other, but derived from a proto-Autronesian language. Again: If anything, the section should say that Tagalog (and many Philippine languages for that matter) are cognate with, not derived from, Malay.

By the looks of your response, you didn't even BOTHER to take a look at the article about Austronesian languages before firing off your reply: (sic) bahasa melayu does not always comes from the other language like indian, chinese, portuguese and so on. But, in fact it does, a proto-Austronesian language from the island of Taiwan.

• As for the Philippines, an archipelago (a group of islands), was a main trading post of the Spanish for over 400 years. (sic) you know why they come to malaysia because of silk, spice, ores and so on. philipines probably not one of them because they are in an island and they are separated. who knows?

• Those austronesian peoples of Vietnam are Cham. They speak another Austronesian language, but NOT Malay. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cham_language)

• And, if you don't know, then find out. That's what I did with my response. I reasearched my response EVEN when I knew that the information was misleading. I had to find proof... So, far, you're not wowwing me.

1. You didn't read the line about the Hakka correctly, and you took Hakka to mean a noodle, not a people from China.
2. You assert that the Philippines was not part of any trade in the area, when it was for several centuries under Spanish rule.
3. You didn't read the article regarding the Austronesian languages.
4. Although I do not deny the fact that Malay is spoken outside of Malaysia, you seem to assert that the languages (some 70-80) of the Philippines, Guam and Cham are all derived from Malay, which is false.
5. You didn't research on the Wikipedia or anywhere else, period.

Joemaza 00:49, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Joemaza has done a good job explaining the scientific linguistic view of how Historical Linguistics and Modern day linguistic theory supports his assertions about word etymologies and language origins. I suggest that Sayasakit092 either take some University level course on Linguistics or not post about this subject at all. Atamagaii 03:46, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

To Atamagaii, Joemaza , or everybody

i am sorry. but i am not university person, Atamagaii, and i am 12 years old. probably i did a mistake because i read a book about languages and it says things i said. and it's an encyclopedia, i don't remember what is the title because i used it in library. i don't have a good grammar or languages in english. but i have a good grammar in my own language and i know where does my language come from, originally, not in malaysia if i'm not mistaken. but one thing that probably some countries said it's their own word (for example: manga, as someone said that it's an srivijayan word.) but they did not know that other people's language has the same meaning with it. sometimes i am too curious and i skim read the article. please i'm sorry.

And my 2nd last word is, Atamagaii, you should respect the other people, not to insult people. if you ask me to go to university taking about level course on linguistic in university, i suggest you should go to kindergarten or primary school learn how to respect people. i mean, if you have something to say, you should respect people because people might have other ideas or knowledge that came from other sources, and it's probably wrong. you should give some more examples to me, otherwise don't write what you want to say. and i am sorry.

i am so sorry again if i insult or showing things that is not true which might be an insult to other languages, especially to joemaza, really sorry, i'll pullback my words that i wrote before. and i do not plan or think to surprising or wowwing you.

mistakes on what i mean: joemaza, i know that you don't mean by dissappearing malay but what i mean is that people in malaysia use their malay and mix them with english. so, our languages became bad. for example, a sentence: i don't care 'lah!'. the term of 'lah' is used in some words, just like we said in english, beco'ming.' but it is in the end of the word. Siapakah kamu? means Who are you? which you might know. that's an example. and second of all, the problem is that not many people speaks malay, malay people speaks malay but some people used it in a wrong way, which what i meant dissapearing. i can't give you example of it because most people don't use it because it's not appropriate.

and cham language is malay. cham language is malay and when you spelt it, is malay. just the pronounciation when someone talk doesn't sound like malay. there is austronesian language but austronesian is australia and new zealand. vietnam is not located in austronesian countries. it is in southeast asia, if you know. and again, different people had different sources. and like you said, who knows. we do not have a person like in UN, they have 'chair', which is the person who declares people who won the debate. i knew this by reading it's own website, http://www.un.org/, but that's another story.

User:Sayasakit092 9:59PM 26 December 2006

You're a brave 12-year-old... or are you now 14. Apology accepted.

Now, a lesson that you could take from this is not to respond they way you did. Otherwise, you will get a similar response. If you want to prove your point, prove it with facts, not assumptions or conclusions. They might sound good, but without facts and research they sound like weak arguments.

Also... Atamagaii, I thank you for you support, but the 12, 14 year old has a point. Please, be courteous. This is a discussion, not a forum to put people down even if they seem to not have done due diligence. I even invite you to question some of the points that I've brought up. This is all but a process of validating facts and sharing it with others around the globe. Even though Sayasakit092 and I don't agree, I admire his bravery to write up what he did. It took courage and now he knows how to conduct himself better for future discussions. Maybe this will inspire him to specialize in Malay linguistics. :-)

Can you back up your claim that "Cham" is in fact Malay? If anything, I'd say that it is Austronesian. It may have branched off what has now become Malay, but with the distance in georgraphy and time, it would say that there is degredation in the intelligibility tha tyou claim.

Joemaza 21:36, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

---

To put the discussion back on track, here's another question about borrowed words:

In the list there's the word dua which of course reminds one of the Sanskrit word for "two", dva (or the Persian as you like, of Indo-European origin, at least). Now, I've just got Dempwolffs book open in front of me ("Vergleichende Lautlehre des Austronesischen Wortschatzes", 1934), and I see that there are quite a few cognate words in the related "Indonesian", "Melanesian", and "Polynesian" languages, namely:

"Uraustronesisch" ḍuva‘ "two":

• Tagalog dalawá’,
• Toba Batak dua‘,
• Javanese loro‘,
• "Ngadju-Dajak" due‘,
• "Hova" rua‘,
• Fiji rua‘,
• Sa'a rue‘, ro‘,
• Tonga ‘ua’,
• Futuna/Samoa lua‘

I am not an expert in Austronesian linguistics, so I ask you, out of interest, if it is possible that this is a borrowing from Sanskrit or Persian that has spread all over the Austronesian territory, or is this correspondence between two very different language families - the Indo-European and the Austronesian - just a curious coincidence?

130.60.142.66 13:53, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

You have to go beyond just single words. You have to take a look at grammar and how similar they are. But, it could be plausible, but you'd have to take a look also that when it comes to numbers, it's usual that the entire set is borrowed. An example, is the coexistance of both native and Spanish numbers in many Philippine languages. So, it is most likely a coincidence. Es tut mir leid.

Joemaza 21:36, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Grammar

A grammar section would be useful, covering issues such as word order (SVO?), plural, tense, copula, and anything else which shows that Malay (or at least basic Malay) is grammatically easy (if I remember correctly). Measure words and prefixes (but not suffixes) are already there is some form. --Henrygb 19:02, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I want to say that I'm pleased to see a fuller grammar section. Congratulations. Being a linguist, I'd love to see a lot more, if possible. Joemaza 00:50, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Sounded political

I can't help but noticing that the 'Writing system' section sounded a tad political than what it should've been. No idea how to change it to make it sound more neutral. Anyone can help?

--Danazach 19:32, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Danazach,

My $0.02:-

"Latin on the other hand shows the dark age of Malay where Malays are taken over and exploited by European foreign powers; Portugal, the Netherlands and Great Britain."

Perhaps "dark age" could be replaced by another word? The Latin alphabet is used widely by a number of languages - and the shift to using this writing system could be a method of standardisation.

buku

Wouldn't this word's origin rather be the Dutch "boek" than the English "book"? Marvan 18:55, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Glottal Stops and Tonic Syllables

Hi everyone. I have decided to ask these questions in the hopes that someone - maybe a native speaker or a someone with more expertise on the subject - can add these clarifications to the "Phonology" section of the article, because it has been sometime since I am looking for these answers, and I am sure more beginning students of these languages have been having the same doubts as me:

1. I think I read somewhere that in Malay and Indonesian there is an "automatic" glottal stop before each word-initial vowel (even if this vowel is preceded by a word ending in a consonant), and between any vowels - with the exception of diphthongs, obviously. I did not gave this much thought though, until I realized that that was the way the words were being pronounced in the "Rosetta Stone - Indonesian" language learning software. So here is the question: In the "RS-I" software, are the words being pronounced like that just to make them more easily intelligible for beginners like myself, or are they really pronounced like that in everyday conversations? For instance, a simple sentence like

Apakah ada seorang pria di atas rumah itu?

Would be pronounced

[ʔa'pakah 'ʔada se'ʔorang 'pria di 'ʔatas 'rumah 'ʔitu]

Or, in normal (or maybe fast-paced) conversation,

[a'pakah'adase'orang'priadi'atas'rumah'itu]?

(' = Tonic Syllable)

2. In the same software ("Rosetta Stone - Indonesian"), the tonic syllables of some words seem to be the last one instead of the penultimate, even when the vowel in this syllable is not the schwa, and some words even seem to "change" their tonic syllable according to who is saying them. So here is the other question: Are the accentuation rules really just

"If the penultimate has a schwa, the last syllable is the tonic one; if the penultimate does not have a schwa, the penultimate is the tonic one;"

Or is this wrong?

Thank you very much, XVoX 23:56, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

The hatnote

Please see Template talk:Distinguish#Incompatible wording for Distinguish2

For now I have changed the hatnote to

Not to be confused with the Malayalam language, spoken in India.

--83.253.36.136 15:16, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Orthographic notes

I took out the note about 'x' representing /ks/, /z/ and /s/ because it is unnecessary. Another note, the one about "k" at the end of word being pronounced as a glottal stop should not be under orthography, it is a phonological phenomenon, just like the final vowel reduction - /a/ to schwa in some varieties128.175.180.149 (talk) 05:44, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Classification and related languages

The last paragraph of this subsection notes,

Although each language of the family is mutually unintelligible, their similarities are rather striking.

However, I have it on good authority that Māori and Hawaiian, for example, are very much mutually intelligible. Perhaps this should be changed to read, although many languages of the family are mutually unintelligible?

75.35.227.117 06:47, 5 July 2007 (UTC) --~~~~Insert non-formatted text here

Hmmm... that's interesting. Maybe is should read thusly.

Joemaza 21:41, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. However the reduplication section probably needs further elaboration. A few examples might be good.

Especially since recently quite a number of terms in ICT and sciences have been created using partial reduplication such as papan kekunci (keyboard), tetikus (computer mouse),pepaku (spike) and something less recent jejari (radius)

--Danazach (talk) 22:43, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Javanese a Malay dialect?

"However, many Malay dialects are not as mutually intelligible: for example, Kelantanese pronunciation is difficult even for some Malaysians to understand, while Javanese tends to have a lot of words unique to it which will be unfamiliar to other speakers of Malay."

So Javanese is a dialect of Malay? Hayabusa future 02:16, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think so. However it seems Malaysians also regard Kelantanese, Yawi, and Minangkabau of Negeri Sembilan as a dialect of Malay, so why not? :-p--Gombang 10:57, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Be mindful of WP:OR. __earth ^(Talk) 11:17, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

No, it isn't. I've just fixed that.E.Cogoy 17:03, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Speaking of Malay dialects, Minangkabau language can be considered a Malay dialect because it uses many Malay words, although they were slight differences in pronunciation, e.g., itiak = itik, for "duck" & goriang = goreng, for "fry/fried". --121.218.215.16 (talk) 12:31, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

contradictory information on official name of the language in Malaysia

• the second paragraph says

In Malaysia, the language is now officially known as Bahasa Malaysia, ("Malaysian language"). Singapore, Brunei and southern Thailand refers to the language as Bahasa Melayu ("Malay language").

• the third paragraph contradicts this, saying:

In Malaysia, the term Bahasa Malaysia, which was introduced by the National Language Act of 1967, was in use until the 1990s, when most academics and government officials reverted to "Bahasa Melayu," used in the Malay version of the Federal Constitution. According to Article 152 of the Federal Constitution, Bahasa Melayu is the official language of Malaysia. "Bahasa Kebangsaan" (National Language) was also used at one point during the 1970s.

So which is it ? -endorf —Preceding unsigned comment added by Endorf (talk • contribs) 18:10, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Map

It'd be great if this page had a map showing usage of the Malay language and derivitives. Mathiastck (talk) 20:30, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

400 millions?

Where does the figure of 400 millions Malay speakers come from? Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Pattani and East Timor together only make some 265 millions inhabitants. Meursault2004 (talk) 01:58, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

400 millions? - Answer

I'm not really sure about this amount of speakers but I want to add: Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, East Timor, Southern Thailand, Southern Phillippines.

I think It's about 300 Millions something... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.53.192.107 (talk) 12:34, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I think that will be less, since clearly, Indonesian people (except those who specialize study Malay language and Malay ethnic in Sumatra and Borneo) CAN'T speak it. Therefore can not be categorized a speaker. They (include me) may understand up to certain % of the meaning but when we reply, certainly we will speak Indonesian Language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.58.88.30 (talk) 06:17, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Consider making a "real" language group article

I think similar to other language group article in wikipedia like Slavic Languages family, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_languages. This page does not describes Malay language as a group of language, but instead, more toward "Malaysia Language". Therefore things like grammar, etc should be put in special page about the language. After some searching in the wikipedia, I found an article which better described about the Malay as a language group which is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malay_languages even the link for Standard Malayan Malay is linked to this page while the Standard Indonesian Malay (formal) is linked to Indonesia language. (114.59.163.169 (talk) 14:56, 14 August 2009 (UTC))

Malaysian Malay and Indonesian is still mutually intelligible, which I doubt is the case with Slavic languages. Gombang (talk) 04:31, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Based on my knowledge they are mutually intelligible, if you have time you may want to check this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differences_in_official_languages_in_Serbia,_Croatia_and_Bosnia, which I think similar (not the same of course) to malay language case. The point is this article describe about Standard Malayan Malay (a language) while at the beginning it declares itself as "Malay refers to a group of languages closely related".

However in the process rather than focused on describing the difference between the group variety (which is linked as other article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varieties_of_Malay)). On the other hand, it describe (In full part) "Simple phrases in Malay" and "Colloquial and contemporary usage", which (especially the last one) clearly refer to the Standard Malayan Malay.

Therefore there is a problem since in the information box, its even says as "Official language in Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia (Indonesian language)[4], East Timor (Indonesian language as working language)" which may cause misconception of reader that "Standard Malayan Malay (instead of Malay as a language group) is officially used in Indonesia and East Timor", which is not.17:44, 3 September 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.163.0.56 (talk)

The article originally described the Malay language as a single language, not as family of languages, IIRC. Whether we can categorise Indonesian and Malaysian languages as a single language is disputable, of course. Gombang (talk) 03:56, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

This is quite interesting since we are talking about languages in evolution. One thing that people should remember is that in our time there are two standard Malay, that is Malaysian (English- & local dialects-influenced) and Indonesian (Dutch-, Javanese-, & Betawi-influenced). Brunei has their own standard, but it is not significant and basically based on Malaysian. People in Indonesia tend not to say Indonesian language as Malay because ethnicity in Indonesia is mostly perceived as based on language grouping. Linguistically, however, Indonesian is a Malay variety. Saying Indonesian is not Malay will make Malay language paraphyletic. Malay language (with all its varieties) is part of Malay languages. I agree that this article need a thorough review. Kembangraps (talk) 18:42, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Indonesian and Malay are some centuries separated?

"Indonesian and Malay are separated by some centuries of different vocabulary development." The fact is, Indonesian version of Malay was developed early of 20th century. Indonesian as unifying language (as called in Youth's Oath 1928) is even not older than a century. Unless 100 years can be said as "some centuries", correction is needed here. Kembangraps (talk) 18:28, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Role of "youngsters"

"I noticed that it is making broad generalizations without any evidence."

I have the same problem with some text under "Origin", viz.

"... while Indonesian contains many words unique to it that are unfamiliar to speakers of Malay (some because of Javanese (bahasa Jawa), Sundanese (bahasa Sunda) or other local language influence, and some because the language has been modified by youngsters)."

Although I have already cleaned up the grammar and pronunciation of this part, I have serious doubts about the final clause:

"some because the language has been modified by youngsters)."

I believe this to constitute nothing more than opinion, and have seen no evidence for it. Thus, after a short pause for reflection - say a week or so - I intend to remove that clause unless someone can offer support for it.

Another factor (for which evidence may exist) should perhaps be mentioned, and that is the fondness of official Indonesian for constructing new portmanteau words and abbreviations, e.g. "Kapolda", found in news reports, which I can only guess to be a contraction of "Ketua Polis Daerah". Again, we would need suitable sources (but I have none) before adding to the article.

yoyo (talk) 08:37, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Indonesian officials are fond of abbreviations. I think we can add that, although we should find some reliable source for it. By the way, your guess of the meaning of Kapolda is close, it is "Kepala Polisi Daerah" (which has basically the same meaning with your guess). Gombang (talk) 17:01, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Indonesian hatnote

I do not mean to express my opinion about the similarities and the differences between Malay and Indonesian, as i don't know either, but the hatnote that says "Not to be confused with the Indonesian language, a variety officially spoken in Indonesia." is not appropriate. The idea of "Not to be confused" hatnotes is to disambiguate between different meanings of similarly sounding words. "Malay" and "Malayalam" sound similar, but "Malay" and "Indonesian" are completely different.

Besides, the fact that Indonesian is closely related to Malay is mentioned in the opening paragraph.

I am removing that hatnote. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 11:31, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

The reason for that is that Indonesian is also called 'Malay', or 'Indonesian Malay'. — kwami (talk) 17:28, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I understand that, but to the best of my understanding this hatnote is supposed to disambiguate article titles and not article subjects. If we don't have it for Dari/Persian and for Valencian/Catalan, then i understand that it shouldn't be here, too. Or is the situation here significantly different?

If someone is looking for information about Indonesian and gets here, then the first sentence will send him to the right place. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 19:52, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Different Dialects of the Malay Language.

There are lots of Malay Dialects spoken in South East Asian. This works like the Chinese or Indians that has lots of dialects where outsiders almost can't tell the differences. These different dialects can be detected if a researcher stayed and listen carefully on different speakers.

Much of the cause of these differences are the many Malay Kingdoms around South East Asia before that developing the language on their own ways. Some are not too different and some are totally hard to understand. Until today, there are still 10 official Malay Kingdom with Kings or Sultanates, that are the 9 Kings or Sultanates of Malaysia and One Sultan of Kingdom of Brunei. However, there are also unofficial Malay Kings such as in Southern Thailand, Southern Philippines, and some parts of the Indonesian Islands such as in the Sumatra. Other lost Malay Kingdoms are the Pattani of South Thailand, Temasik of Singapore, Sulu of South Philippines, Malacca of Central Malay Peninsula, Acheh of North Sumatra, Palembang of Middle Sumatra and many more. Much of the lost kingdoms are because of the Colonization age. In Malaysia alone, the Malay Language are varied according to different states (Kingdoms). There are the Northern Malay Dialects spoken by the State of Kedah, Penang, Perlis and Northern Perak. The Johore-Riau Dialects are spoken in Selangor, Johore, Malacca and Singaporean Malay. The Unique Dialects that spoken only in their own states are the Nogori Dialects Spoken by the State of Negeri Sembilan Natives, the Perakian Dialects spoken by the Perak Natives, The Terengganu Dialects spoken by the Terengganu natives, the Pahang Dialects spoken by the Pahang Natives, the Kelantanese Dialects spoken by the Kelantan Natives, Sarawakian Dialects spoken by the Sarawak Malays and the Sabahan Dialects spoken by the Sabah Malays. The Southern Thailand of Malay area in Pattani spoke much similar to the Kelantanese and the Southern Thailand of Malay area in Narathiwat spoke much the same with the Northern Malay Dialects (Kedah Perlis). The Southern Philippines of Malay Area (Mindanao and Sulu) can be understood by the Sabahan Malays and the Kadazans becaus it is quite close to their Dialects.

A very common Malay Dialects that being considered as Official Malay Language (Bahasa Melayu/Bahasa Malaysia) are the Johore-Riau Dialects. These Dialects has been officially used in the government sectors, Mass-media (Printed and Electronics) and schools. A very unique dialects and considered as hard to understand are the Kelantanese, the Terengganu, and the Sarawakian Dialects.

If you find out that there are lots of Malay Dialects in parts of Malaysia-Singapore, Southern Thailand, and Southern Philippines. These are not too much if to compare with the diversity of Dialects in Indonesia. That would be covered in the different topics. Snoiprocs16 (talk) 15:53, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

merge

IMO grammar at Malaysian and Indonesian should be merged here, to avoid a content fork. The two standards differ primarily in vocab, but there's very little diff otherwise. We could leave a summary, but currently we have a lot of detail. I tagged the sections at Indo that IMO should be here; at Malaysian, it's primarily phonology that's dup'd, tho I'm guessing we'd want to leave at least a basic chart, as at Indo.

Titles are good, though we might want to consider 'Malaysian Malay' and 'Indonesian Malay' to clarify that these aren't languages any more than American English and British English are. Only prob w that is that 'Indonesian Malay' might be construed as native Malay spoken in Riau and Sumatra, which is called Bahasa Malayu rather than Bahasa Indonesia in Indonesia. — kwami (talk) 08:06, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

My apologies – I’m not completely sure what you are suggesting. It seems you are not suggesting a merge of pages, but merge/rearrangement of content across pages. Am I right? In which case I'm am largely supportive of your recommendations - although American and British English underestimates the differences.

The Indonesia project editors should be consulted on these issues, and I have not got their views yet, but my thoughts related to broader issues on these articles are:

• Malay language, Indonesian language, Malaysian are all related but distinct enough subjects for their own pages. Perhaps the “Malaysian” title needs reassessment.
• I certainly support a re-organisation of content between these. While a degree of overlap is inherently necessary, at the moment overlap IMO is excessive and confused. But, with the creation of the “Malaysian” article, we are now on the right track.
• If the Malay article is to continue to promote Indonesian as being Malay (which I think is at best careless – at worst disingenuous), then what I’m calling the “Malaysianness” needs to be correspondingly toned down. 20m vs. 200m is simple maths.
• Indonesian language should not be moved to Indonesian Malay. I don’t get that. I have never heard to it referred to it as such. It is overwhelmingly (ie, always) referred to as Indonesian across the world. Actually, there is one place I have seen it referred to as such: here on wikipedia. But it was unreferenced and likely WP:OR efforts that, if I may be cynical and cheeky for one brief moment, I suspect may have been written by a Malaysian. ;-)
• British English vs. American English comparisons are probably not that helpful. The differences between Malaysian and Indonesian varieties are much more pronounced – and they are generally referred to as distinct languages. There would be differences in almost every sentence in a comparison, rather than the occasional "garbage"-"trash" and "petrol"-"gas" differences.
• Given that “Malay” was always a/the lingua franca throughout Maritime Southeast Asia and that Indonesian is based on a variety that had its origins in Indonesia not Malaysia, I think lines like (and I'm paraphrasing ehre) “Malay is the official language in Malaysia and also Indonesia as Indonesian” is a little careless, and at worst, disingenuous.
• I’m concerned that the articles are increasingly becoming grammar and vocab guides. An encyclopedia should focus on general descriptions of the language including its history/development and where and where it is used and varieties. Not on how to use it. Wikipedia language articles are not “how to” guides. If the grammar content is merged into Malay language, then that article needs to be less Malaysia-centric with Indonesian as an after thought. Ie, the new Malaysian language needs to be kept. But, even better, would be to remove most of the text book stuff.
• We’ve mentioned the varieties of Indonesia and Malaysia. What about Brunei? Is it “Malaysian”?
• East Timor uses Indonesian (after Portuguese, Tetum of course). It does not use Malay/sian.

Cheers --Merbabu (talk) 00:14, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Malaysian and Indonesian are the same language. They're even based on the same dialect of Malay: that of the Johore-Riau court, a sultanate which was divided between Malaysia and Indonesia. In the ELL2, they are treated under a single title, "Malay"; the article on Indonesia states that the national language is Malay, which was renamed Indonesian as part of the national independence movement. They are only separate languages in the sense that they are separate national standards, but the differences are almost entirely in the vocabulary, and then not in the basic vocab. I'm sure you know the situation better than I, but when I'm in Indonesia, people say I speak Indonesian, and when I'm in Malaysia, people say I speak Malaysian, yet I speak the same language in both countries: I only make a few minor changes to grammatical words, such as tak.

I agree 'Malay' should be balanced and not cover Malaysian. The reason that it does that until recently it was the article for Malaysian. The way I see it, 'Malay language' should cover the language as a whole, with only summaries of the Malaysian and Indonesian standards. 'Malaysian language' and 'Indonesian language' should cover the standards in detail, with only summaries of the material in the main article.

Brunei has always gone by the name "Malay", but I don't know if it's a separate standard. The colloquial language is clearly a distinct dialect, though, as are all of the 'local Malays'.

East Timor of course also uses Malay through the Indonesian standard.

A couple cites from ELL2:

"On the Malay Peninsula and on the adjacent southern islands, Malay developed literary varieties at the various royal courts. The most prestigious one was the literary classical Malay of the Riau-Johore kingdom, which had its roots in the literary tradition of the earlier sultanate of Malacca. ... The existence of two standard varieties of Malay, namely Malaysian (called ‘Bahasa Melayu’ in Malaysia) and Indonesian (‘Bahasa Indonesia’), is mainly the result of an agreement reached between the British and the Dutch, who in 1824 drew new boundaries of their colonial territories. The mainland part of the Malay-speaking area became part of the British realm, and Sumatra together with the offshore islands became part of the Dutch realm. The treaty divided the former Riau-Johore Sultanate into two separate entities, with Johore belonging to the British and the Riau archipelago belonging to the Dutch. Because of this political demarcation, the influential Riau-Johore variant of Malay was now spoken in two distinct territories, which were to become Malaysia and Indonesia. Since this prestigious Riau-Johore court language played a major role in the formation of the standard languages of both countries, Malaysian and Indonesian remained closely related and are dialects of one and the same language. The differences between the two are most obvious in the vocabulary. The phonological, morphological, and syntactic differences are few and not very significant. There are a considerable number of cases in which Malaysian borrowed an English word and Indonesian a Dutch word, e.g., tayar vs. ban ‘tire’ or fius vs. sekering ‘fuse.’ Other variations occur when one of the two national variants has borrowed a European word, while the other one is a retention or an innovation, e.g., Malaysian dulang ‘tray’ (retention) vs. Indonesian baki ‘tray’ (from Dutch bakje) or Malaysian panggung wayang ‘cinema’ (innovation) vs. Indonesian bioskop (from Dutch bioscoop). There are cases when both Malaysian and Indonesian share the some word but with minor phonetic variation, e.g., Malaysian kerusi, Indonesian kursi ‘chair’ (from Arabic kursī). In some instances the Malay word underwent different semantic changes, e.g., Malaysian pusing ‘turn, revolve’ has the meaning ‘dizzy’ in Indonesian. Furthermore, Malaysian has borrowed more from Arabic than Indonesian, while Indonesian has undergone considerable Javanese and Jakarta Malay influence. In Indonesia, the establishment of Malay as the national language was not disputed; its choice was not regarded as favoring any one ethnic group, since ethnic Malays constituted no more than 10% of Indonesia’s population. Furthermore, various forms of Malay had long been established throughout the Indonesian archipelago." ("Malay", pp. 6232-6233)

"During the time of Dutch colonial control (until 1942), the official language was Dutch but, because Malay was more widely known, it became increasingly important both as an administrative language and as a medium of instruction in schools. Riau Malay, the dialect spoken in central Sumatra near Singapore, became the standard. In the early part of the 20th century, Malay became associated with the nationalist movement for independence. In 1928 young nationalists declared Bahasa Indonesia, their new name for Malay, to be the national language. Their aspirations were not fully realized until independence came in 1945, and Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian) was decreed to be the national language." ("Indonesia: Language situation", pp. 4545-4546)

There is no separate article for "Indonesian" or "Malaysian". — kwami (talk) 01:08, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Same language or not, I was distracted by your suggestion that the two were no different than British and American English. Fortuantely none of the WP articles appear to suggest that. The excerpt you provide above is encouragingly more in line of what I think wikipedia language articles should cover - rather than the "Language X for beginners" guides that the Indonesian language article is increasingly becoming.

Yes, such info belongs at Wikibooks. You can start gutting the article of all the 'how-to' stuff if you like. I don't think anyone would mind. — kwami (talk) 01:29, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

And yeah - I haven't really looked in detail at the articles, but a combination of removal and your initial suggestion for merging to Malay Language for the technical details seems sound in principal. cheers --Merbabu (talk) 01:34, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I somehow agree with Kwamikagami in the sense that this whole wikipedia article needs to be revamped and provide a more neutral content. Both Indonesian and Malysian Malay are based on the same lineage, hence the article on Malay should focus more on the common history - i.e. Old Malay, Classical Malay before it diverges into two different Malay used officially in three different countries in the middle 20th century. Once it comes to the point of divergence, a brief info of each standards (regulated by the language council of each country) is provided and should be linked to each article that touches more detail of each standards. --Danazach (talk) 12:33, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

In the French WP I found an article "Grammaire du malais-indonésien", but also an article "Indonésien". Although a newcomer in WP, I took the initiative of transferring the most "linguistic-style" paragraphs from the first article to the second, without encountering any criticism. I agree that the differences between Indonesian and Malay are tiny, but the person who does not know anything on Indonesian will not likely start their browsing with "Malay". Therefore I also think that some basic introductory article on Indonesian should remain besides a fully detailed Grammar of Malay and Indonesian (or Grammar of Indonesian and Malay!). Acsacal (talk) 14:15, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I am of the opinion that Malay should be a generic term (all encompassing covering Indonesia, Malaysian, Brunei, Singaporean, Sarawakian, Kelantanese, Southern Thai etc). This article used Malay that is connotatively biased towards Malay used in Malaysia, because the term Malay tend to be officially linked to the official language of the government of Malaysia, in comparison to the, pardon my language, politically-connived term Indonesian. (Compare it with Brunei which also uses the term Malay).

Had Indonesian uses the term 'Malay' to call their dialect, there's no doubt that this article will have more of Indonesian content. --Danazach (talk) 12:24, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree completely with the approach you outlined above. I also agree that the Malaysian details of this article need to be moved to Malaysian language. (That's cleanup remaining from the recent split.) As for the Malaysian connotations of the word "Malay", that's why we have separate articles. Someone looking up "Indonesian" will be directed here as the main article.

Either that, or we could merge all three articles into one, parallel the Encyclopedia of language and linguistics, and start w s.t. like "Malay, also known as Malaysian in Malaysia and Indonesian in Indonesia, is a ...". — kwami (talk) 20:31, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Merge more or less done, and I expanded a bit, though this article needs a lot of work! — kwami (talk) 13:11, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

The loss of Malay's noun prefix in this article

I have added the awalan "juru-" into this article, since it is one of the five Malay noun prefixes. To note, Malay has five awalan or prefixes such as peN-, pe-, peR-, ke-, and juru-.

This was edited by me by referring to the Dewan Bahasa & Pustaka (DBP)'s grammar book, that is Tatabahasa Dewan Edisi Baharu. This loss of facts or information should be avoided in the future.

Master of Books (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:01, 16 November 2010 (UTC).

Origins of the Word and Uasage of Malay/Malayu

I would like to propose the following

The Etymology of Malay or Malayu goes back to the 7th century and is derived from what the Kshatriya ruling class of the Srivijaya Kingdom (the bunts and the Nairs), who were from South West region of India speaking Malayalam a Dravidian dialect named from Ancient times from Malaya Mountains where it originated. This is evidenced by the Balinese Kshatriya's who claim ancestral origin from south west India Kshatriya casts. Some historian promote that the word Melayu derives from the Sanskrit] term Malaiur translated as "land of mountains" which is erroneous since Sanskrit nor any other Prakrit has a similar word in context. During the time of the first unified Kingdom of the region the local people must have identified with the rulers and started to refer themselves as such, So when the European colonist first arrived the must have proclaimed themselves 'Malayu' or any such other similar variant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NoeticOne (talk • contribs) 08:13, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Do you have any reliable sources per WP:V? thanks --Merbabu (talk) 09:17, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Infobox standard languages noted

Should we include the as Indonesian, as Malaysian, and possible others such as as Bruneian in the infobox after each country such as the IP just added to East Timor? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 06:15, 2 February 2011 (UTC)