Malay, Standard

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A language of Malaysia

ISO 639-3
zsm
Alternate Names
Bahasa Malayu, Bahasa Melayu Malaysia, Formal Malay, Malay, Malaysian Malay, Malayu, Melayu, Melayu Baku
Autonym
Bahasa Malaysia, بهاس مليسيا‎ (Bahasa Malaysia)
User Population

Few L1 speakers. L2 includes most Malaysian population.

Location

Widespread.

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]. Also use Mandarin Chinese [cmn]. Also use Tamil [tam].

Language Development

Used through secondary education and in some tertiary institutions. Taught in all primary and secondary schools; taught as subject in schools using Chinese [cmn] or Tamil [tam] as the language of instruction. Taught in tertiary schools. Fully developed. Bible: 1733–2016.

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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