Malay - Orientation



Malays live chiefly in peninsular Malaysia, where they are more than half of the population. Malays also live in East Malaysia (Sabah and Sarawak), on the coasts of Sumatra and other islands of Indonesia, extending up to the Sulu Sea of the southern Philippines. The name "Malay" is sometimes used for all of these people and refers to a cultural area called Malaysia, which ranges from southern Thailand to the Sulu Sea. This cultural sense of Malaysia never had any political unity, and "Malaysia" now refers to peninsular Malaysia (West Malaysia) and Sabah and Sarawak (East Malaysia). Malay (Bahasa Melayu) belongs to the Malayo-Polynesian Family of languages, which extend from mainland Southeast Asia to Easter Island in the Pacific. Malay is similar to modern Indonesian to about the degree that British and American English are similar, except that Indonesian shows the effects (both in structure and vocabulary) of long contact with Dutch, while Malay exhibits English influences. Malay is written in a Latin alphabet (Rumi) and a derived Indian script (Jawi).


Demography. There are more than eight million Malays in Malaysia, about 90 percent of them in peninsular Malaysia. On the peninsula, Malays tend to live in the river delta areas and the wet-rice ( padi or sawah ) growing regions. Towns and cities have large Chinese and Indian populations. The Malays are clustered on the east coast in the states of Kelantan, Terengganu, and Pahang. Sizable populations of Malays are also found along the west coast, in Johor, and in Singapore. The population density is about 125 persons per square mile, and the rate of increase is about 2.4 percent per year (2.8 percent in East Malaysia).


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User Contributions:

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Qila
Assalam. I want to ask about malay expressive culture. It is for my assignment and i'm still confused about it. Can you explain it?

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