Talk:Malays (ethnic group)

Origins

The section "Origins" needs to be rewritten. The concept of Proto-Malays and Deutero-Malays is outdated in modern anthropology, although I am aware that still is floating around in textbooks in Indonesia and Malaysia. These terms were not employed in connection with the Malay ethnic group in the "narrow" sense (the topic of this article), but for the concept of a "Malay race" (with Malays in the "narrow" sense being "Deutero-Malays"). Many of the sources cited in this section do not subscribe to this obsolete terminology at all, so there is a lot of synth involved. Further, Out-of-Sundaland is a minority position and is given undue weight in this section. I hope regular contributors to this page can help to present a view on Malay origins according to the state of the art in anthropology and related disciplines. I don't want to do it single-handed (aware of my linguist's POV), so hopefully we can improve this in a collective effort. –Austronesier (talk) 21:13, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the suggestion Austronesier, yes, I agree that the section needs a major write-up. Though I'm not really sure where to begin with.--د بڠساون (talk) 00:30, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Sri Lankan and Cape Malays in the Malay people article.

Similar to other Malay groups, the Sri Lankan and Cape Malays both have their origin from Southeast Asia, these groups are both tied with their common origin, language (although the Cape Malay Language was extinct in the late 19th century) and the Islamic faith.

To some extend, the SL and Cape Malays reminds me of the Johorean and Singaporean Malays, these groups too having a visible creolised origin - with significant Javanese, Bugis, Bawean and Minangkabau ancestry, similar with the diverse ethnogenesis origin of Cocos Malays (of Australia) and Loloan Malays (in Bali). Native99girl (talk) 10:52, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

@Native99girl: In this matter, I'm afraid I have to disagree. Sri Lankan and Cape Malays are an amalgation of diverse ethnic groups from ISEA (plus the Malay Peninsula) which were called "Malays" based on the outdated use of "Malay" as a racial term. In their new home, they ended up speaking Low Malay as a contact language (and still do in Sri Lanka in a creolized form), but that's different from Johorean Malays. Johorean Malays have lived for a more than a millenium in the Peninsula, and modern-age newcomers from the archipelago assimilate (culturally and linguistically, to various degree) to the native majority population. The Malaysian government also calls unassimilated newcomers "Malays" (echoing the obsolete racial usage), but this is – as we all know – for political reasons to sex up the demographics. –Austronesier (talk) 11:33, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Much obliged for the feedback @Austronesier:, do you think these two groups should remain or separated from the article?

I have a same concern with the Loloan and Cocos Malays. Native99girl (talk) 11:42, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

The Sri Lankan, Cape Malays and Cocos Malays are beyond the scope of this article and should therefore be left out from the infobox. I don't know much about the Loloan Malays, but I would expect them to be descendants of Malays in the narrow sense (similar to the Malay communities in Bima or in the harbor area of Makassar).

The statement in the final lede paragraph probably also needs to be relativized: "Ethnic Malays are also the major source of the ethnocultural development of the related Betawi, Banjar, Cape Malay, Chams, Cocos Malay, Peranakan and Sri Lankan Malay cultures". Every one of these is a case of its own, and the actual influence of ethnic Malay culture on these groups varies strongly. –Austronesier (talk) 12:06, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Good observation Austronesier, you have a good point. Native99girl (talk) 12:58, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

@The Bangsawan and Orhanghazi: What's your take on this? Both of you have put much effort into shaping this article, so I hesitate to claim a "consensus" (unlike User:AlhyarJy who only communicates via edit summaries) before having heard your opinion about it. –Austronesier (talk) 17:57, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Greetings @Austronesier and @Native99girl, I agree if we can align and narrow down the scope based on the Indonesian interpretation of Malay, it is much more clear and specific. --د بڠساون (talk) 11:48, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Philippine (Filipino) Malays

It is obvious, to me at least (I am Filipino), that the author(s) of this article deliberately excluded the Philippines from discussion. Remember "MaPhilIndo"? It stands for Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia, and emphasizes the fundamental similarities among the three nations (just like "BeNeLux"). May I also remind the authors that the Philippines' national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, has long been regarded as "The Pride of the Malay Race." There is another article here in Wikipedia titled "Malay Race", and in that article, the Philippines is included in the discussion. In this article, titled simply (and may I say, deceptively) "Malay", the subject is actually "Malay Ethnic Group". The author(s) here seem(s) to be making a distinction between 'Malay ethnic group' and 'Malay race'. I am not an expert on ethnology or ethno-anthropology, but I have never encountered any respectable reading (and I am an old man) that made such a distinction. If the paradigms have recently changed, then please give us a definition of each ('ethnic group' and 'race' in general) so we may be edified. If you cannot give us any sensible definitions that clearly distinguish between the two concepts, then I vigorously recommend that the Philippine Malays be included for discussion in this article. Otherwise this article will prove itself to be quite biased, highly inaccurate, deceptive (by omission), and thus not worthy of being published in Wikipedia. Please do take my suggestion seriously. Vmreyes 020859 (talk) 15:16, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE

Malays is currently treating this page about actual humans and Malay race—an account of 19th-century racist pseudoscientific nonsense—as equally important categories for its topic. They aren't and it's silly WP:UNDUE importance to pretend that they are. (Separately, there was only a single wrong editor over there keeping that dab separate from Malay, which never should have happened and should still be fixed.)

This page's content is clearly the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for anyone trying to find Malays. Meanwhile, the dab "(ethnic group)" is overlong, unintuitive, and at odds with our standard formatting and can't be meaningfully contrasted with "race" the way it's currently being used.

The right namespace here is to move this page's content to Malays or Malay people. If there's disagreement on certain issues (e.g. whether Filipinos are included or not) that real discussion should be hashed out in the real page about the real group of real humans. Don't pretend some of them are covered by "ethnicity" and some of them are covered by "race" as if we're all still in Eton in 1913. As far as modern science goes, humans have certain genetic differences that partially overlap our ethnicities but "races" are either nonexistant or so fractured as to have dozens on a single Philippine island and be a nearly useless concept. It's been 20+ years. Let's please clean this up. — LlywelynII 13:25, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

@LlywelynII: In modern parlance locally and globally, "Malay" refers to the ethnic group that is distributed over four countries (Brunei, Indonesia, Malayasia, Singapore) in various proportions. The adaptation of the term as a "racial" marker has widely become outdated except in the Philippines, where the racializing usage of the term has still has significant currency. It also has left its mark in the terms "Sri Lanka Malays" and "Cape Malays" for the fused new ethnicities formed by descendants of immigrants of various ethnic groups from the Indonesian archpelago and the Malay peninsula. Overall, the racial usage is peripheral, while for most people nowadays, "Malay" refers to the topic of this article (i.e. the primary topic).

So basically, it's about

• Malays (ethnic group) → Malays
• Malays → Malays (disambiguation).

Go ahead and make a move request, I'm fully in support of it. –Austronesier (talk) 18:01, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Unsourced material in the infobox

@Gandalfett and Ckfasdf: against INFOBOXPURPOSE, the infobox now contains several unsourced notes, which should have a counterpart in the main article first before being reflected in a bird's-eye view summary of key facts (= infobox). While they are WP:BLUESKY for us who are familiar with the terminological issues, they need to be verifiable for readers from outside of the area (even Filipinos, who live the same geographical region, are generally not aware of these intricacies). This also includes the exemplary figure of 60% of Javanese descendants counted as "Malays" in Singapore.

Maybe a dedicated section "Distribution" will help. Austronesier (talk) 10:54, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

@Austronesier: I know it's WP:OTHERCONTENT, but other ethnic pages also have notes on its infobox, such as Koreans and Javanese people. Also, MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE states there will be exceptions where a piece of key specialised information is difficult to integrate into the body text, but where that information may be placed in the infobox. IMO such notes can be considered as an exception as mentioned before. However, it'll better if we can add reference for the notes so it won't be "unsourced notes". Ckfasdf (talk) 08:53, 19 July 2023 (UTC)