Malay is a national
language of Malaysia. It is not only spoken in Malaysia but is also widely
spoken in Indonesia, Brunei, Singapore and Southern Thailand. Indonesia has its
own standard meanwhile Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore generally use the same standard.
The extent to which Malay is used in these countries varies depending on
historical and cultural circumstances.
In Malaysia, the language is known as Bahasa Melayu or Bahasa Malaysia. Since
1968, Standard Malay is the official language of Malaysia along with
English and Mandarin Chinese and Tamil. However,
the language of wider communication is colloquial Malay. As a vestige of
colonization, English is still considered a prestigious language among the
educated classes. It continues to be used in the majority of institutions of
higher education. However, Malay is officially the medium of scientific,
administrative, legal and other official matters.
The language is characterized by
significant differences between formal and informal registers. The formal register is used in public
speeches, formal writing, and in educational settings. It is characterized
by a significant number of borrowings from Sanskrit, Arabic and other foreign
languages. It is referred to as Standard Malay.
The informal register is used in everyday conversations. It is characterized
by a significant number of borrowings from local languages. It is referred to
as colloquial, or informal, Malay.There are few first-language speakers of
Standard Malay, most people learn it as a second dialect.
Malay is an
agglutinative language, and new words are formed by three methods: attaching
affixes onto a root word (affixation), formation of a compound word
(composition), or repetition of words or portions of words (reduplication).
Refferences ;
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