Malay was first used in the first millennia known as Old Malay, a part of theAustronesian language family. Over a period of twomillennia, Malay has undergone various stages of development that derived from different layers of foreign influences through international trade, religious expansion,colonisation and developments of new socio-political trends. The oldest form of Malay is descended from theProto-Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by the earliestAustronesian settlers inSoutheast Asia. This form would later evolve into Old Malay when Indian cultures and religions began penetrating the region, most probably using the Kawi and Rencong scripts, some linguistic researchers say. Old Malay contained some terms that exist today, but are unintelligible to modern speakers, while the modern language is already largely recognisable in written Classical Malay of 1303 CE.^[2]

Malay evolved extensively into Classical Malay through the gradual influx of numerous elements of Arabic and Persian vocabulary when Islam made its way to the region. Initially, Classical Malay was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting the varied origins of the Malay kingdoms of Southeast Asia. One of these dialects that was developed in the literary tradition ofMalacca in the 15th century, eventually became predominant. The strong influence of Malacca in international trade in the region resulted in Malay as alingua franca in commerce and diplomacy, a status that it maintained throughout the age of the succeeding Malay sultanates, the European colonial era and the modern times. From the 19th to 20th century, Malay evolved progressively through significant grammatical improvements and lexical enrichment into a modern language with more than 800,000 phrases in various disciplines.

Proto-Malayic is the language believed to have existed in prehistoric times, spoken by the early Austronesian settlers in the region. Its ancestor, theProto-Malayo-Polynesian language that derived fromProto-Austronesian, began to break up by at least 2000 BCE as a result possibly by the southward expansion ofAustronesian peoples into thePhilippines,Borneo,Maluku andSulawesi from the island ofTaiwan. The Proto-Malayic language was spoken in Borneo at least by 1000 BCE and was, it has been argued, the ancestral language of all subsequentMalay dialects. Linguists generally agree that the homeland of theMalayic languages is in Borneo, based on its geographic spread in the interior, its variations that are not due to contact-induced change, and its sometimes conservative character.^[3] Around the beginning of the first millennium, Malayic speakers had established settlements in the coastal regions of modern-daySumatra,Malay Peninsula,Borneo,Luzon,Sulawesi,Maluku Islands,Riau Islands,Bangka-Belitung Islands andJava-Bali Islands.^[4]

The beginning of the common era saw the growing influence of Indian civilisation in the archipelago. With the penetration and proliferation ofSanskrit vocabulary and the influence of majorIndian religions such asHinduism andBuddhism, Ancient Malay evolved into the Old Malay. The oldest uncontroversial specimens of Old Malay are the 7th century CESojomerto inscription fromCentral Java,Kedukan Bukit Inscription fromSouth Sumatra,Indonesia and several other inscriptions dating from the 7th to 10th centuries discovered inSumatra,Java, other islands of theSunda archipelago, as well asLuzon,Philippines. All these Old Malay inscriptions used either scripts of Indian origin such asPallava,Nagari or the Indian-influenced old Sumatran characters.^[5]

The Old Malay system is greatly influenced bySanskrit scriptures in terms ofphonemes,morphemes,vocabulary and the characteristics of scholarship, particularly when the words are closely related to Indian culture such aspuja,bakti,kesatria,maharaja andraja, as well as on the Hindu-Buddhist religion such asdosa,pahala,neraka,syurga orsurga (used in Indonesia-which was based on Malay),puasa,sami andbiara, which lasts until today. In fact, some Malays regardless of personal religion have names derived fromSanskrit such as the names of Indian Hindu gods or heroes include Puteri/Putri, Putera/Putra, Wira and Wati.

It is popularly claimed that the Old Malay of theSrivijayan inscriptions from South Sumatra, Indonesia, is the ancestor of the Classical Malay. However, as noted by some linguists, the precise relationship between these two, whether ancestral or not, is problematic and remains uncertain.^[6] This is due to the existence of a number of morphological and syntactic peculiarities, and affixes that are familiar from the relatedBatak language but are not found even in the oldest manuscripts of Classical Malay. It may be the case that the language of the Srivijayan inscriptions is a close cousin rather than an ancestor of Classical Malay according to Teeuws, hence he asked for more research about it.^[7] Moreover, although the earliest evidence of Classical Malay had been found in the Malay Peninsula from 1303, Old Malay remained in use as a written language in Sumatra right up to the end of the 14th century, evidenced from Bukit Gombak inscription dated 1357^[8] and Tanjung Tanah manuscript ofAdityavarman era (1347–1375). Later research stated that Old Malay and Modern Malay are forms of the same language in spite of some considerable differences between them.^[9][10]

The period of Classical Malay started whenIslam gained its foothold in the region and the elevation of its status to astate religion. As a result ofIslamisation and growth in trade with theMuslim world, this era witnessed the penetration ofArabic andPersian vocabulary as well as the integration of majorIslamic cultures with local Malay culture. The earliest instances of Arabic lexicons incorporated in the pre-Classical Malay written in Kawi was found in theMinye Tujoh inscription dated 1380 CE fromAceh inSumatra. Nevertheless, pre-Classical Malay took on a more radical form more than half a century earlier as attested in the 1303 CETerengganu Inscription Stone as well as the 1468 CEPengkalan Kempas Inscription, both from the Malay Peninsula. Both inscriptions not only serve as the evidence of Islam as a state religion but also as the oldest surviving specimen of the dominant classicalorthographic form, theJawi script. Similar inscriptions containing various adopted Arabic terms with some of them still written the Indianised scripts were also discovered in other parts of Sumatra and Borneo.^[11][12]

The pre-Classical Malay evolved and reached its refined form during the golden age of the Malay empire ofMalacca and its successorJohor starting from the 15th century.^[13] As a bustling port city with a diverse population of 200,000 from different nations, the largest in Southeast Asia at that time, Malacca became a melting pot of different cultures and languages.^[14] More loan words from Arab, Persian, Tamil and Chinese were absorbed and the period witnessed the flowering ofClassical Malay literature as well as professional development in royal leadership and public administration. In contrast with Old Malay, the literary themes of Malacca had expanded beyond the decorativebelles-lettres andtheological works, evidenced with the inclusion ofaccountancy,maritime laws,credit notes andtradelicences in its literary tradition. Some prominent manuscripts of this category areUndang-Undang Melaka (Laws of Malacca) andUndang-Undang Laut Melaka (Maritime Laws of Malacca). The literary tradition was further enriched with the translations of various foreign literary works such asHikayat Muhammad Hanafiah andHikayat Amir Hamzah, and the emergence of new intellectual writings inphilosophy,tasawuf,tafsir,history and many others in Malay, represented by manuscripts likethe Malay Annals andHikayat Hang Tuah.^[12][15]

Malacca's success as a centre of commerce, religion, and literary output has made it an important point ofcultural reference to the many influential Malay sultanates in the later centuries. This has resulted in the growing importance of Classical Malay as the solelingua franca of the region. Through inter-ethnic contact and trade, the Classical Malay spread beyond the traditional Malay speaking world^[16] and resulted in a trade language that was calledMelayu Pasar ("Bazaar Malay") orMelayu Rendah ("Low Malay")^[17] as opposed toMelayu Tinggi (High Malay) of Malacca-Johor. In fact, Johor even played a key role in the introduction of the Malay language to various areas in the eastern part of the archipelago. It is generally believed thatBazaar Malay was a pidgin, perhaps influenced by contact between Malay, Chinese and non-Malay natives traders. The most important development, however, has been that pidgin Malay creolised, creating several new languages such as theBaba Malay,Betawi Malay andEastern Indonesian Malay.^[18] Apart from being the primary instrument in spreading Islam and commercial activities, Malay also became a court and literary language for kingdoms beyond its traditionalrealm likeAceh andTernate and also used in diplomatic communications with the European colonial powers. This is evidenced from diplomatic letters from Sultan Abu Hayat II of Ternate to KingJohn III of Portugal dated from 1521 to 1522, a letter from Sultan Alauddin Riayat Shah of Aceh to CaptainSir Henry Middleton of theEast India Company dated 1602, and a golden letter from SultanIskandar Muda of Aceh to KingJames I ofEngland dated 1615.^[19]

This era also witnessed the growing interest among foreigners in learning the Malay language for the purpose of commerce, diplomatic missions and missionary activities. Therefore, many books in the form of word-list or dictionary were written. The oldest of these was a Chinese-Malay word list compiled by theMing officials of theBureau of Translators during the heyday of Malacca Sultanate. The dictionary was known asMan-la-jia Yiyu (滿剌加譯語, Translated Words of Malacca) and contains 482 entries categorised into 17 fields namely astronomy, geography, seasons and times, plants, birds and animals, houses and palaces, human behaviours and bodies, gold and jewelleries, social and history, colours, measurements and general words.^{[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][excessive citations]} In the 16th century, the word-list is believed still in use in China when a royal archive official Yang Lin reviewed the record in 1560 CE.^[33] In 1522, the first European-Malay word-list was compiled by an Italian explorerAntonio Pigafetta, who joined theMagellan'scircumnavigation expedition. The Italian-Malay word-list by Pigafetta contains approximately 426 entries and became the main reference for the later Latin-Malay and French-Malay dictionaries.^[34]

The early phase of European colonisation in Southeast Asia began with the arrival of the Portuguese in the 16th century, the Dutch in the 17th century followed by the British in the 18th century. This period also marked the dawn ofChristianisation in the region with its stronghold inMalacca,Ambon,Ternate andBatavia. Publication of Bible translations began as early as the seventeenth century although there is evidence that theJesuit missionary,Francis Xavier, translated religious texts that included Bible verses into Malay as early as the sixteenth century.^[35] In fact, Francis Xavier devoted much of his life to missions in just four main centres,Malacca,Amboina andTernate,Japan andChina, two of those were within Malay speaking realm. In facilitating missionary works, religious books and manuscripts began to be translated into Malay of which the earliest was initiated by a pious Dutch trader, Albert Ruyll in 1611. The book titledSovrat A B C and written in Latin alphabet not only means introducing the Latin alphabet but also the basic tenets ofCalvinism that include theTen Commandments, the faith and some prayers. This work later followed by severalBibles translated into Malay;Injil Mateus dan Markus (1638),Lukas dan Johannes (1646),Injil dan Perbuatan (1651),Kitab Kejadian (1662),Perjanjian Baru (1668) andMazmur (1689).^[36]

The 19th century was the period of strongWestern political and commercial domination in the Malay archipelago. The colonial demarcation brought by the1824 Anglo-Dutch Treaty led toDutch East India Company effectively colonising theEast Indies in the south while theBritish Empire held several colonies and protectorates in theMalay peninsula andBorneo in the north. The Dutch and British colonists, realising the importance of understanding the local languages and cultures particularly Malay, began establishing various centres of linguistic, literary and cultural studies in universities likeLeiden andLondon. Thousands of Malay manuscripts, as well as other historical artefacts of Malay culture, were collected and studied.^[37] The use ofLatin script began to expand in the fields of administration and education whereby the influence ofEnglish andDutch literatures and languages started to penetrate and spread gradually into the Malay language.

At the same time, the technological development in printing method that enabled mass production at low prices increased the activities of authorship for general reading in the Malay language, a development that would later shift away Malay literature from its traditional position in Malay courts.^[37] In addition, the report writing style of journalism began to bloom in the arena of Malay writing.

A notable writer of this time wasMalacca-bornAbdullah Munsyi with his famous worksHikayat Abdullah (1840),Kisah Pelayaran Abdullah ke Kelantan (1838) andKisah Pelayaran Abdullah ke Mekah (1854). Abdullah's work marks an early stage in the transition from classical to modern literature, taking Malay literature out of its preoccupation with folk-stories and legends into accurate historical descriptions.^[38] In fact, Abdullah himself also assisted Claudius Thomsen, a Danish priest, in publishling the first known Malay magazine, the Christian missionary themedBustan Ariffin in Malacca in 1831, more than a half a century early than the first known Malay newspaper.^[39] Abdullah Munsyi is considered the "Father of Modern Malay Literature", being the first local Malay to have his works published.

Many other well-known books were published throughout the archipelago such as three notable classical literary works,Gurindam Dua Belas (1847),Bustanul Katibin (1857) andKitab Pengetahuan Bahasa (1858) bySelangor-bornRaja Ali Haji were also produced inRiau-Lingga during this time. By the mid-19th and early 20th centuries, the Malay literary world was also enlivened by female writers such asRiau-Lingga-born Raja Aisyah Sulaiman, granddaughter ofRaja Ali Haji himself with her famous bookHikayat Syamsul Anwar (1890). In this book, she expresses her disapproval regarding her marriage and her attachment to the tradition and the royal court.

The scholars of the Riau-Lingga also established the Rusydiyah Club, one of the first Malay literary organisations, to engage in various literary and intellectual activities in the late 19th century. It was a group of Malay scholars, who discussed various matters related to writing and publishing. There were also other famous religious books of the era that were not only published locally but also in countries like Egypt and Turkey.

Among the earliest examples of Malay newspapers areSoerat Kabar Bahasa Malaijoe of Surabaya published inDutch East Indies in 1856,Jawi Peranakan ofSingapore published in 1876 andSeri Perak of Taiping published inBritish Malaya in 1893. There was even a Malay newspaper published in Sri Lanka in 1869, known asAlamat Langkapuri, considered the first Malay newspaper ever published in theJawi script.

In education, the Malay language of Malacca-Johor was regarded as the standard language and became the medium of instruction in schools during the colonial era. Starting in 1821, Malay-medium schools were established by the British colonial government inPenang,Malacca andSingapore. These were followed by many others in the Malay states of the peninsula. This development generated the writing of textbooks for schools, in addition to the publication of reference materials such as Malay dictionaries and grammar books. Apart from that, an important impetus was given toward the use of Malay in British administration, which requires every public servant in service to pass the special examination in the Malay language as a condition for a confirmed post, as published inStraits Government Gazette 1859.

In Indonesia, the Dutch colonial government recognised the Malacca-Johor Malay used inRiau-Lingga as "High Malay" and promoted it as a medium of communication between the Dutch and local population. The language was also taught in schools not only in Riau but also inEast Sumatra,Java,Kalimantan and East Indonesia.^[39] In 1984, the Dutch colonial government was therefore decided to disseminate this language - and not Dutch - throughout the colony.^[40][41] To this end, the colonial government stimulated the study, standardisation and modernisation of Malay, imposing it via its institutions, via education, the missions and the media, and via the literary works produced by the state publishers Balai Poestaka. In this respect, the Dutch pursued a non-chauvinistic cultural policy.^[40] Another catalyst in the movement towards standardization of Malay in Western script was an amalgam of philology and a growing consciousness of an Indies identity such that a "lingua franca" justification for Malay had become insufficient.^[42] Klinkert's pure Malacca or Riau Malay was unusable in the eastern part of Indies even in the coastal regions.^[42]

The flourishing of pre-modern Malay literature in 19th century led to the rise of intellectual movement among the locals and the emergence of new community of Malay linguists. The appreciation of the language grew, and various efforts were undertaken by the community to further enhance the usage of Malay as well as to improve its abilities in facing the challenging modern era. Among the efforts done was the planning of acorpus for the Malay language, first initiated by thePakatan Belajar-Mengajar Pengetahuan Bahasa (Society for the Learning and Teaching of Linguistic Knowledge), established in 1888. The society that was renamed in 1935 asPakatan Bahasa Melayu dan Persuratan Buku Diraja Johor (Johor Royal Society of Malay Language and Literary Works), involved actively in arranging and compiling the guidelines for spelling, dictionaries, grammars, punctuations, letters, essays, terminologies and many others.^[43] The establishment of theSultan Idris Training College (SITC) inTanjung Malim,Perak in 1922 intensified these efforts. In 1910, Sasrasoeganda Koewatin, a prominent Malay language teacher of Kweekschool and OpIeidingschool in Yogyakarta, wrote a Malay grammar book entitledKitab Jang Menjatakan Djalannja Bahasa Melajoe in which is the first Malay grammar book in Latin script which became the basis for the Indonesian language in use today.^[44] In 1936,Za'ba, an outstanding Malay scholar and lecturer of the SITC, produced a Malay grammar book series entitledPelita Bahasa that modernised the structure of the Classical Malay language and became the basis for the Malay language that is in use today.^[45] The most important change was insyntax, from the classical passive form to the modern active form. In the 20th century, other improvements were also carried out by other associations, organisations, governmental institutions and congresses in various part of the region.

Writing has its unique place in the history of self-awareness and the nationalist struggle in Indonesia and Malaysia. Apart from being the main tools to spread knowledge and information, newspapers and journals likeAl-Imam (1906),Panji Poestaka (1912),Lembaga Melayu (1914),Warta Malaya (1931),Poedjangga Baroe (1933) andUtusan Melayu (1939) became the main thrust in championing and shaping the fight fornationalism. Writing, whether in the form of novels, short stories, or poems, all played distinct roles in galvanising the spirit ofIndonesian National Awakening andMalay nationalism.

During the firstKongres Pemuda of Indonesia held in 1926, Malay was proposed as the unifying language for Indonesia which led to disagreement. This proposal led into the secondKongres Pemuda of Indonesia which held in 1928 and declared "bahasa Indonesia" (Indonesian) as the unifying language for Indonesia in theSumpah Pemuda. It has been suggested that the Indonesian language is an artificial language made official in 1928.^[47] In 1945, Bahasa Indonesia, orIndonesian in English, was enshrined as thenational language in the constitution of the newly independent Indonesia. Later in 1957, the Malay language was elevated to the status of national language for the independentFederation of Malaya (later reconstituted asMalaysia in 1963). One of important institutions isDewan Bahasa dan Pustaka established in 1956 in Malaysia which is a government body responsible for coordinating the use of the Malay language in Malaysia. Then in 1959, the Malay language also received the status of national language inBrunei, although it only ceased to become a British protectorate in 1984. WhenSingapore separated from Malaysia in 1965, Malay became the national language of the new republic and one of the four official languages. The emergence of these newly independent states paved the way for a broader and widespread use of Malay and Indonesian in government administration and education. Colleges and universities with Malay as their primary medium of instructions were introduced and bloomed as the prominent centres for researches and production of new intellectual writings in Malay.^[48] Following East Timor independence from Indonesia, theIndonesian language has been designated by the country's 2002 constitution as one of two 'working languages' (the other being English).

Indonesian as the unifying language for Indonesia is relatively open to accommodating influences from other Indonesian ethnic group languages,Dutch as the previous coloniser, andEnglish as an international language. As a result, Indonesian has wider sources of loanwords, as compared to Malay as used in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. Indonesian generally uses Latin and Greek-based international terms, while Malay in Malaysia, under the guidance of its first Language Board directorSyed Nasir, was more conservative and would accept foreign words only as a last resort.^[51] By artificial this means that Indonesian was designed by academics rather than evolving naturally as most common languages have, to accommodate the political purpose of establishing an official unifying language of Indonesia.^[49] By borrowing heavily from numerous other languages it expresses a natural linguistic evolution; in fact, it is as natural as the next language, as demonstrated in its exceptional capacity for absorbing foreign vocabulary. Insyntaxis, Indonesian departs from the concrete nature of the Malay sentence into European abstractions.^[52]

The dominant orthographic form of the Modern Malay language based on the Roman orLatin script, theMalay alphabet, was first developed in the early 20th century. As the Malay-speaking countries were divided between two colonial administrations (the Dutch and the British), two major different spelling orthographies were developed in theDutch East Indies andBritish Malaya respectively, influenced by the orthographies of their respective colonial tongues. In 1901, theVan Ophuijsen Spelling System (1901–1947) became the standard orthography for the Malay language in the Dutch East Indies. In the following year, the government of theFederated Malay States established an orthographic commission headed by SirRichard James Wilkinson which later developed the "Wilkinson Spelling System" (1904–1933). These spelling systems would later be succeeded by theRepublican Spelling System (1947–1972) and the Za'ba Spelling System (1933–1942) respectively. During theJapanese occupation of Malaya andIndonesia, there emerged a system which was supposed to uniformise the systems in the two countries. The system known asFajar Asia (or 'the Dawn of Asia') appeared to use the Republican system of writing vowels and the Malayan system of writing consonants. This system only existed during the occupation. In 1972, a declaration was made for a jointspelling system in both nations, known asEjaan Rumi Baharu (New Rumi Spelling) in Malaysia andSistem Ejaan Yang Disempurnakan (Perfected Spelling System) in Indonesia. With the introduction of this new common spelling system, all administrative documents, teaching and learning materials and all forms of written communication is based on a relatively uniform spelling system and this helps in effective and efficient communication, particularly in national administration and education.

Despite the widespread and institutionalised use of theMalay alphabet, theJawi script remains as one of the two official scripts inBrunei, and is used as an alternate script inMalaysia. Day-to-day usage of Jawi is maintained in more conservative Malay-populated areas such asPattani in Thailand andKelantan in Malaysia. The script is used for religious and Malay cultural administration inTerengganu,Kelantan,Kedah,Perlis andJohor. The influence of the script is still present inSulu andMarawi in the Philippines, while in Indonesia the Jawi script is still widely used in Riau and Riau Island province, where road signs and government buildings signs are written in this script.^[53]

This disparate evolution of Indonesian language led to a need for an institution that can facilitate co-ordination and co-operation in linguistic development among countries with Malay–Indonesian language as their national language. Malaysians tend to assert that Malay and Indonesian are merely different varieties of the same language, while Indonesians tend to treat them as separate – albeit closely related – languages. The result of this attitude is that the Indonesians feel little need to synchronize their language with Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, whereas the Malaysians are keener to coordinate the evolution of the language with the Indonesians.^[54] The first instance of linguistic co-operation was in 1959 between Malaya and Indonesia, and this was further strengthened in 1972 when MBIM (a short form forMajlis Bahasa Indonesia-Malaysia – Language Council of Indonesia-Malaysia) was formed. MBIM later grew into MABBIM (Majlis Bahasa Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia – Language Council of Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia) in 1985 with the inclusion of Brunei as a member and Singapore as a permanent observer. Although, MABBIM is not working properly which reflects Indonesian attitude of little need to synchronize their language.^[55][56]

• Malay literature
  • Malaysian literature
  • Indonesian literature
• Malay folklore
• Ethnic Malays
• Malayisation
• List of Hikayat

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• Noriah, Mohamed (1999),Sejarah Sosiolinguistik Bahasa Melayu Lama, Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia,ISBN 983-861-184-0
• Ooi, Keat Gin (2008),Historical Dictionary of Malaysia, The Scarecrow Press, Inc.,ISBN 978-0-8108-5955-5
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• Sneddon, James N. (2003),The Indonesian Language: Its History and Role in Modern Society, University of New South Wales Press,ISBN 0-86840-598-1
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• Old Malay inscriptions
• Loan-Words in Indonesian and Malay - compiled by the Indonesian etymological project (Russell Jones, general editor)

• Malay language
• Language histories

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