Malay 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 the Philippines and Thailand. Altogether, it is spoken by 290 … See more

Malay historical linguists agree on the likelihood of the Malay homeland being in Northwestern Borneo. A form known as Proto-Malay was spoken in Borneo at least by 1000 BCE and was, it has been argued, the ancestral language of all subsequent See more

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 See more

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 See more

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 … See more

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 See more

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 … See more