Malay, Standard

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A language of Malaysia

ISO 639-3
zsm
Alternate Names
Bahasa Malaysia, Bahasa Malayu, Formal Malay, Malay, Malayu, Melayu, Melayu Baku
Population

Few L1 speakers. L2 includes most Malaysian population.

Location

Widespread in Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah, and Sarawak.

Language Status

1 (National). Statutory national language (1963, Constitution (amended), Article 153A(1)).

Classification
Austronesian, Malayo-Polynesian, Malayo-Chamic, Malayic, Malay
Dialects

None known. Lexical similarity: more than 80% with Indonesian [ind]. A member of macrolanguage Malay [msa].

Typology

SVO.

Language Use

Also use English [eng], Mandarin Chinese [cmn], Tamil [tam].

Language Development
Used through secondary education and in some tertiary institutions. Fully developed. Bible: 1733–1996.
Language Resources
OLAC resources in and about Malay, Standard
Writing

Arabic script, Naskh variant [Arab]. Braille script [Brai]. Latin script [Latn].

Other Comments

On Peninsular Malaysia, Standard Malay [zsm] exists in a diglossic relationship with Local Malay [zlm]. Standard Malay (derived from court Malay), both in terms of its linguistic structure as well as its sociolinguistic function, has its closest counterpart not in a particular Local Malay dialect but in Standard Indonesian [ind].

Also spoken in:

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