Malay
Malay, or Bahasa Malaysian, is a member of the Western Malayo-Poynesian group
of the Austronesian family of languages. It is spoken by almost 75 million people,
primarily in Malaysia, where it is the official language, and Singapore where
it is the national language, and one of the country's 4 official languages.
The Malay language spoken in Singapore is similar to that spoken in most parts
of West Malaysia and a regional effort is being made to standardize the use
of spoken Malay (called Sebutan Baku). Malay is also closely related to Bahasa
Indonesian with which it is 80% cognate.
For many centuries, up to early this century, the Jawi script, based on Arabic
writing, was the dominant writing system in the Malay world, widely used in
the court and outside. In the early 20th century, the trend for texts to be
printed in Jawi script became less and less attractive and in the late 1950s,
it was phased out in favor of romanized or "Rumi" alphabets. Today
Jawi script is confined to mostly Islamic religious publications, however, recently
efforts have been made by various bodies to introduce and encourage the usage
of Jawi scripts into the literary scene.
Sources:
Kampung Net
Deeptrans Inc.
Ethnologue
65th IFLA Council
Information on writing system:
Independent Study Courses Available at UCSD:
Other Local Resources:
UCSD International Center
Mingei museum of folk art
International web radio