Malay language

Not to be confused with the Malayalam language, spoken in India.

Not to be confused with the Indonesian language, a variety officially spoken in Indonesia.

Malay
Bahasa Melayu بهاس ملايو
Native to	Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, southern Thailand, Philippines, southern Myanmar, Cocos Island, Christmas Island, Sri Lanka.
Native speakers	more than 300 million, about 10% are Malay ethnic (mother tongue)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian (MP) Nuclear MP Malayo-Sumbawan Malayic Malayan Malay Malay
Writing system	Rumi (Latin alphabet) (official in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia; co-official in Brunei) and Jawi (Arabic script) (co-official in Brunei and Malaysia). Historically written in Pallava, Kawi and Rencong
Official status
Official language in	Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia (Indonesian language), East Timor (working language)
Regulated by	Majlis Bahasa Brunei - Indonesia - Malaysia (Brunei - Indonesia - Malaysia Language Council — MABBIM), Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (Institute of Language and Literature) Pusat Bahasa, Indonesia
Language codes
ISO 639-1	ms
ISO 639-2	may (B) msa (T)
ISO 639-3	Variously: msa – Malay (generic) zlm – Malay (specific) zsm – Standard Malay btj – Bacanese Malay bve – Berau Malay bvu – Bukit Malay coa – Cocos Islands Malay hji – Haji (language)|Haji jax – Jambi Malay meo – Kedah Malay mqg – Kota Bangun Kutai Malay xmm – Manado Malay max – North Moluccan Malay mfa – Pattani Malay msi – Sabah Malay vkt – Tenggarong Kutai Malay

Malay refers to a group of languages closely related to each other to the point of mutual intelligibility but that linguists consider to be separate languages. They are grouped into a group called "Local Malay", part of a larger group called "Malayan" within the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family. The various forms of Malay are spoken in Brunei, Indonesia (where the national language, Indonesian, is one form of it), Malaysia, Singapore, and southern Thailand.

Malay is an official language of Brunei and Malaysia, and one of the official languages in Singapore. The national language of Indonesia is Indonesian, formally referred to as Bahasa Indonesia which literally translates as "Indonesian language". It is also called Bahasa Nasional (National Language) and Bahasa Persatuan/Pemersatu (Unifying Language) in Indonesia. Indonesian is also used in East Timor, a consequence of more than 20 years of Indonesian military occupation. In Malaysia, the language is now officially known as Bahasa Malaysia ("Malaysian language"), though constitutionally it is called Bahasa Melayu. Singapore, Brunei and southern Thailand refer to the language as Bahasa Melayu ("Malay language").

Origin

There are many hypotheses as to where the Malay language originated. One of these is that it came from Sumatra island. The oldest written documents in Malay, dated from the end of the 7th century AD, were found on Bangka Island, off the southeastern coast of Sumatra and in Palembang in southern Sumatra. "Malayu" was the name of an old kingdom located in Jambi province in eastern Sumatra. It was known in ancient Chinese texts as "Mo-lo-yo" and mentioned in the Nagarakertagama, an old Javanese epic written in 1365, as one of the "tributary states" of the Majapahit kingdom in eastern Java.

The use of Malay throughout insular and peninsular Southeast Asia is linked to the rise of Muslim kingdoms and the spread of Islam, itself a consequence of growing regional trade.

Indonesia pronounced a variety of Malay its official language when it gained independence, calling it Bahasa Indonesia. However, the language had already been used as the lingua franca throughout the archipelago since the 15th century. Since 1928, nationalists and young people throughout the Indonesian archipelago declared it to be Indonesia's only official language, as proclaimed in the Sumpah Pemuda "Youth Vow." Thus Indonesia was the first country to designate it as an official language. In several parts of Indonesia, in Sumatra and Borneo Islands, Malay is spoken as local dialect of Malay ethnic.

In Malaysia, the term Bahasa Malaysia, which was introduced by the National Language Act of 1967, was in use until the 1990s, when most academics and government officials reverted to "Bahasa Melayu," used in the Malay version of the Federal Constitution. According to Article 152 of the Federal Constitution, Bahasa Melayu is the official language of Malaysia. "Bahasa Kebangsaan" (National Language) was also used at one point during the 1970s. However, at present day, Malaysians prefer to identify their national language as Bahasa Malaysia once again. Similar to Malaysia in the mid 1990's, "Bahasa Melayu" was defined as Brunei's official language in the country's 1959 Constitution.

Indonesian and Malay are separated by some centuries of different vocabulary development, partly due to the influence of different colonial languages; Dutch in the case of Indonesia, formerly the Dutch East Indies and English in the case of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, which were formerly under British rule.

Some Malay dialects, however, show only limited mutual intelligibility with the standard language; for example, Kelantanese pronunciation is difficult even for some fellow Malay speakers to understand, while Indonesian contains a lot of words unique to it that are unfamiliar to speakers of Malay.

The language spoken by the Peranakan (Straits Chinese, a hybrid of Chinese settlers from the Ming Dynasty and local Malays) is a unique patois of Malay and the Chinese Hokkien dialect, which is mostly spoken in the former Straits Settlements of Penang and Malacca in Malaysia, and the Indonesian Archipelago.

History

Main article: Old Malay

The history of the Malay language can be divided into four periods: Old Malay, the Transitional Period, the Malacca Period, and Late Modern Malay.

Old Malay is unintelligible to a speaker of modern Malay. It was heavily influenced by Sanskrit, the lingua franca of Hinduism and Buddhism. The earliest known inscription in the Old Malay language was found in Sumatra, written in Pallava script and dates back to 7th century - known as Kedukan Bukit Inscription, it was discovered by the Dutchman M. Batenburg on 29 November, 1920, at Kedukan Bukit, South Sumatra, on the banks of the River Tatang, a tributary of the River Musi. It is a small stone of 45 by 80 cm.

The Malay language came into widespread use as the trade language of the Sultanate of Malacca (1402 – 1511). During this period, the Malay language developed rapidly under the influence of Islamic literature. The development changed the nature of the language with massive infusion of Arabic, Persian and Hindi or Sanskrit vocabularies. Under the Sultanate of Malacca the language evolved into a form recognizable to speakers of modern Malay.

Classification and related languages

See also: Austronesian languages § Cross-linguistic Comparison Chart

Malay is a member of the Austronesian family of languages which includes languages from Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean, with a smaller number in continental Asia. Malagasy, a geographic outlier spoken in Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, is also a member of this linguistic family.

Malay belongs to the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the family, which includes the Languages of the Philippines and Malagasy, which is further subdivided into Outer Hesperonesian languages and Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian of which Malay is a member. Malay's closest relatives therefore include Javanese, Acehnese, Chamorro and Palauan.

Although each language of the family is mutually unintelligible, their similarities are rather striking. Many roots have come virtually unchanged from their common Austronesian ancestor. There are many cognates found in the languages' words for kinship, health, body parts and common animals. Numbers, especially, show remarkable similarities.

Writing system

Main article: Malay alphabet

Malay is normally written using Latin alphabet called Rumi, although a modified Arabic script called Jawi also exists. Rumi is official in Malaysia and Singapore, and Indonesian has a different official orthography also using the Latin script. Rumi and Jawi are co-official in Brunei. Efforts are currently being undertaken to preserve Jawi script and to revive its use amongst Malays in Malaysia, and students taking Malay language examination in Malaysia have the option of answering questions using Jawi script. The Latin alphabet, however, is still the most commonly used script in Malaysia, both for official and informal purposes.

Historically, Malay has been written using various scripts. Before the introduction of Arabic script in the Malay region, Malay was written using Pallava, Kawi and Rencong script and are still in use today by the Champa Malay in Vietnam and Cambodia. Old Malay was written using Pallava and Kawi script, as evident from several inscription stones in the Malay region. Starting from the era of kingdom of Pasai and throughout the golden age of the Sultanate of Malacca, Jawi gradually replaced these scripts as the most commonly used script in the Malay region. Starting from the 17th century, under Dutch and British influences, Jawi was gradually replaced by the Rumi script.

Extent of use and dialects

Main article: Varieties of Malay

See also: Malay-based creole languages

The extent to which Malay is used in these countries varies depending on historical and cultural circumstances. Bahasa Melayu is the national language in Malaysia by Article 152 of the Constitution of Malaysia, and became the sole official language in West Malaysia in 1968, and in East Malaysia gradually from 1974. English continues, however, to be widely used in professional and commercial fields and in the superior courts. Other minority languages are also commonly used by the country's large ethnic minorities. The situation in Brunei is similar to that of Malaysia.

Phonology

Note: this article uses the orthography of Malaysian Malay. For Indonesian orthography, see Indonesian language.

Table of consonant phonemes of Malay

	Bilabial		Labio- Dental		Dental		Alveolar		Post- Alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Uvular		Glottal
Nasal	m /m/						n /n/				ny /ɲ/		ng /ŋ/
Plosive	p /p/	b /b/			t /t/	d /d/							k /k/	g /ɡ/
Affricate									c /tʃ/	j /dʒ/
Fricative			f /f/	v /v/			s /s/	z /z/	sy /ʃ, ʂ, sj/								h /h/
Approximant											y /j/		w /w/
Lateral							l /l/
Trill							r /r/

Orthographic Note:

• The combination of /ŋɡ/ is represented as ngg.

Table of vowel phonemes of Malay

Height	Front	Central	Back
Close	i /i/		u /u/
Mid	e /e, ɛ/	e /ə/	o /o, ɔ/
Open		a /a/	a /ɑ/

Table diphthongs of Malay

Orthography	IPA
ai	/aɪ̯, ai/
au	/aʊ̯, au/
ua	/ua/

There are two vowels represented by the letter "e", i.e. /e, ɛ/ and /ə/. Learners of Malay are expected to distinguish between the two sounds while learning each new word.

In some parts of Peninsular Malaysia, especially in the central and southern regions, most words which end with the letter a tend to be pronounced /ə/.

Grammar

Word Formation

Malay is an agglutinative language, and new words are formed by three methods. New words can be created by attaching affixes onto a root word (affixation), formation of a compound word (composition), or repetition of words or portions of words (reduplication).

Affixes

Root words are either nouns or verbs, which can be affixed to derive new words, e.g. masak (to cook) yields memasak (cooks, is cooking, etc.), memasakkan (cooks, is cooking for etc.), dimasak (cooked - passive) as well as pemasak (cook - person), masakan (cooking, cookery). Many initial consonants undergo mutation when prefixes are added: e.g. sapu (sweep) becomes penyapu (broom); panggil (to call) becomes memanggil (calls, is calling, etc.), tapis (sieve) becomes menapis (sieves, is sieving, etc.)

Other examples of the use of affixes to change the meaning of a word can be seen with the word ajar (teach):

• ajar = teach
• ajaran = teachings
• belajar = to learn
• mengajar = to teach
• diajar = being taught (intransitive)
• diajarkan = being taught (transitive)
• mempelajari = to study
• dipelajari = being studied
• pelajar = student
• pengajar = teacher
• pelajaran = subject
• pengajaran = lesson, moral of story
• pembelajaran = learning
• terajar = taught (accidentally)
• terpelajar = well-educated
• berpelajaran = is educated

There are four types of affixes, namely prefixes (awalan), suffixes (akhiran), circumfixes (apitan) and infixes (sisipan). These affixes are categorised into noun affixes, verb affixes, and adjective affixes.

Noun affixes are affixes that form nouns upon addition to root words. The following are examples of noun affixes:

Type of noun affixes	Affix	Example of root word	Example of derived word
Prefix	pe(N)-	duduk (sit)	penduduk (population)
	ke-	hendak (want)	kehendak (desire)
	juru-	acara (event)	juruacara (event host)
Infix	-el-	tunjuk (point)	telunjuk (index finger, command)
	-em-	kelut (dishevelled)	kemelut (chaos, crisis)
	-er-	gigi (teeth)	gerigi (toothed blade)
Suffix	-an	bangun (wake up, raise)	bangunan (building)
Circumfix	ke-...-an	raja (king)	kerajaan (kingdom)
	pe(N)-...-an	kerja (work)	pekerjaan (occupation)

(N) and (R) indicate that if a word begins with certain letters (most often vowels or consonants k, p, s, t), the letter will either be omitted or will undergo nasal mutation or be replaced by the letter l.

Similarly, verb affixes are attached to root words to form verbs. In Malay, there are:

Type of verb affixes	Affix	Example of root word	Example of derived word
Prefix	be(R)-	ajar (teach)	belajar (to study) - Intransitive
	me(N)-	tolong (help)	menolong (to help) - Active transitive
	di-	ambil (take)	diambil (is being taken) - Passive transitive
	mempe(R)-	kemas (tidy up, orderly)	memperkemas (to arrange further)
	dipe(R)-	dalam (deep)	diperdalam (is being further deepen)
	te(R)-	makan (eat)	termakan (to have accidentally eaten)
Suffix	-kan	letak (place, keep)	letakkan (keep) - Imperative transitive
	-i	jauh (far)	jauhi (avoid) - Imperative transitive
Circumfix	be(R)-...-an	pasang (pair)	berpasangan (in pairs)
	be(R)-...-kan	tajuk (title)	bertajukkan (to be titled, to entitle)
	me(N)-...-kan	pasti (sure)	memastikan (to make sure)
	me(N)-...-i	teman (company)	menemani (to accompany)
	mempe(R)-...-kan	guna (use)	mempergunakan (to utilise, to exploit)
	mempe(R)-...-i	ajar (teach)	mempelajari (to study)
	ke-...-an	hilang (disappear)	kehilangan (to lose)
	di-...-i	sakit (pain)	disakiti (to be hurt by)
	di-...-kan	benar (right)	dibenarkan (is allowed to)
	dipe(R)-...-kan	kenal (know, recognise)	diperkenalkan (is being introduced)

Adjective affixes are attached to root words to form adjectives:

Type of adjective affixes	Affix	Example of root word	Example of derived word
Prefix	te(R)-	kenal (know)	terkenal (famous)
	se-	lari (run)	selari (parallel)
Infix	-el-	serak (disperse)	selerak (messy)
	-em-	cerlang (radiant bright)	cemerlang (bright, excellent)
	-er-	sabut (husk)	serabut (dishevelled)
Circumfix	ke-...-an	barat (west)	kebaratan (westernized)

In addition to these affixes, Malay also has a lot of borrowed affixes from other languages such as Sanskrit, Arabic and English. For example maha-, pasca-, eka-, bi-, anti-, pro- etc.

Compound word

In Malay, new words can be formed by joining two or more root words. Compound words, when they exist freely in a sentence, are often written separately. Compound words are only attached to each other when they are bound by circumfix or when they are already considered as stable words.

For example, the word kereta which means car and api which means fire, are compounded to form a new word kereta api (train). Similarly, ambil alih (take over) is formed using the root words ambil (take) and alih (move), but will link together when a circumfix is attached to it, i.e. pengambilalihan (takeover). Certain stable words, such as kakitangan (personnel), and kerjasama (corporation), are spelled as one word even when they exist freely in sentences.

Reduplication

There are four types of words reduplication in Malay, namely

• Full reduplication
• Partial reduplication
• Rhythmic reduplication
• Reduplication of meaning

Measure words

Another distinguishing feature of Malay is its use of measure words (penjodoh bilangan). In this way, it is similar to many other languages of Asia, including Chinese, Vietnamese, Burmese, and Bengali.

Measure words cannot be translated into English. Examples are :

measure word	used for measuring	literary translation	example
buah	thing (in general)	'fruit'	dua buah meja (two tables), lima buah rumah (five houses)
orang	person, human	'person'	seorang lelaki (a man), enam orang petani (six farmers), seratus orang murid (a hundred students)
biji	rounded object	'grain'	sebiji telur (an egg)

Part of Speech

In Malay, there are 4 parts of speech:

• Nouns
• Verbs
• Adjectives
• Function words

Function words

There are 16 types of function words in Malay which perform a grammatical function in a sentence. Amongst these are conjunctions, interjections, prepositions, negations and determiners.

Negations

There are two negation words in Malay, that is bukan and tidak. Bukan is used to negate noun phrases and prepositions in a predicate, whereas tidak is used to negate verbs and adjectives phrases in a predicate.

Subject	Negation	Predicate
Lelaki yang berjalan dengan Birsilah itu (That boy who is walking with Birsilah)	bukan (is not)	teman lelakinya (her boyfriend)
Surat itu (The letter)	bukan (is not)	daripada teman penanya di Perancis (from his penpal in France)
Pelajar-pelajar itu (Those students)	tidak (do not)	mengikuti peraturan sekolah (obey school regulations)
Penguasaan Bahasa Melayunya (His command of Malay language)	tidak (is not)	sempurna (perfect)

The negative word bukan however, can be used before verb phrases and adjective phrases if the sentence shows contradictions.

Subject	Negation	Predicate	Contradiction
Karangannya (His composition)	bukan (is not)	baik sangat, (very good,)	tetapi dia mendapat markah yang baik (but he received good marks)
Kilang itu (The factory)	bukan (is not)	menghasilkan kereta Kancil, (producing Kancil cars)	sebaliknya menghasilkan Proton Wira (instead is producing Proton Wira)

Grammatical gender

Malay does not make use of grammatical gender, and there are only a few words that use natural gender; the same word is used for he and she or for his and her. Most of the words that refer to people (family terms, professions, etc.) have a form that does not distinguish between the sexes. For example, adik can both refer to a younger sibling of either sex. In order to specify the natural gender of a noun, an adjective has to be added: adik laki-laki corresponds to "brother" but really means "male younger sibling". There are some words that are gendered, for instance puteri means "princess", and putera means "prince"; words like these are usually absorbed from other languages (in these cases, from Sanskrit).

Pluralization

There is no grammatical plural in Malay. Plurality is expressed by the context, or the usage of words expressing plurality, and by reduplication when needed. However, reduplication has most of the time many other functions and meanings.

Verbs

Verbs are not inflected for person or number, and they are not marked for tense; tense is instead denoted by time adverbs (such as "yesterday") or by other tense indicators, such as sudah, "already". On the other hand, there is a complex system of verb affixes to render nuances of meaning and denote active and passive voices or intentional and accidental moods. Some of these affixes are ignored in daily conversations.

Word order

The basic word order is Subject Verb Object. Adjectives, demonstrative pronouns and possessive pronouns follow the noun they modify.

Borrowed words

Main article: List of Malay loanwords

The Malay language has many words borrowed from Arabic (mainly religious terms), Sanskrit, Tamil, Persian, Portuguese, Dutch, certain Chinese dialects and more recently, English (in particular many scientific and technological terms).

Simple phrases in Malay

In Malaysia, to greet somebody with "Selamat pagi" or "Selamat sejahtera" would be considered very formal, and the borrowed word "Hi" would be more usual among friends; similarly "Bye-bye" is often used when taking one's leave.

Malay Phrase	IPA	English Translation
Selamat datang	/səlamat dataŋ/	Welcome (Used as a greeting)
Selamat jalan	/səlamat dʒalan/	Have a safe journey (equivalent to "goodbye", used by the party staying)
Selamat tinggal	/səlamat tiŋɡal/	Goodbye (Lit translation: "Good stay", used by the party going)
Terima kasih	/tərima kasih/	Thank you
Sama-sama	/sama sama/	You are welcome (as in a response to Thank You)
Selamat pagi	/səlamat paɡi/	Good morning
Selamat petang	/səlamat pətaŋ/	Good afternoon/evening (note that 'Selamat petang' must not be used at night as in English. For a general greeting, use 'Selamat sejahtera')
Selamat sejahtera	/səlamat sədʒahtəra/	Greetings (formal)
Selamat malam	/səlamat malam/	Good night
Jumpa lagi		See you again
Siapakah nama awak?/Nama awak apa?		What is your name?
Nama saya ...		My name is ... (The relevant name is placed in front. For example, if your name was Munirah, then you would introduce yourself by saying "Nama saya Munirah", which translates to "My name is Munirah")
Apa khabar?		How are you? / What's up? (literally, "What news?")
Khabar baik		Fine, good news
Saya sakit		I'm sick
Ya	/ja/	Yes
Tidak ("tak" colloquially)		No
Ibu (Saya) sayang engkau/kamu (awak)		I love you (In a more of a family or affectionate sort of love, e.g.: mother to daughter, the Mother addresses herself as "Ibu" (mother) or Emak (Mother) instead of "Saya" for "I". And the mother also uses the informal "engkau" instead of "awak" for "you".)
Aku (Saya) cinta pada mu (awak)		I love you (romantic love. In romantic situation, use informal "Aku" instead of "Saya" for "I". And "Kamu" or just "Mu" for "You". In romance, in immediate family communication and in songs, informal pronouns are used). Please note that in Malay language, appropriate personal pronouns must be used depending on (1) whether the situation is formal or informal, (2) the social status of the people around the speaker and (3) the relationship of the speaker with the person spoken to and/or with people around the speaker. For learners of Malay language, it is advised that you stick to formal personal pronouns when speaking Malay to Malays and Indonesians. You risk being considered as rude if you use informal personal pronouns in inappropriate situations.
Saya benci awak		I hate you
Saya tidak faham (or simply "tak faham" colloquially)		I do not understand
Saya tidak tahu (or "tak tau" colloquially or "sik tau" in Sarawak)		I do not know
(Minta) maaf		I apologise ('minta' is to request)
Tumpang tanya		"May I ask...?" (used when trying to ask something)
(Minta) tolong		Please help (me) ('Tolong!' on its own just means "help")
Apa		What
Tiada		Nothing

Colloquial and contemporary usage

Contemporary usage of Malay includes a set of slang words, formed by innovations of standard Malay words or incorporated from other languages, spoken by the urban speech community, which may not be familiar to the older generation, e.g. awek (girl); balak (guy); usha (survey); skodeng (peep); cun (pretty); poyo/slenge (horrible, low-quality) etc. New plural pronouns have also been formed out of the original pronouns and the word orang ("people"), i.e. kitorang (kita + orang, the exclusive "we", in place of kami); korang (kau + orang, "you"); diorang or derang (dia + orang, "they").

The Malay-speaking community, especially in Kuala Lumpur, also code-switch between English and Malay in their speech, forming Bahasa Rojak. Examples of the borrowings are: Bestlah tempat ni (This place is cool);kau ni terror lah (How daring you are; you're fabulous). Consequently, this phenomenon has raised the displeasure of language purists in Malaysia, in their effort to uphold the proper use of the national language.

The following are some contractions used by Malay-speaking youths:

Non-formal Word	Formal Word	English Translation
bleh/leh	boleh	can, able to
takleh/tokleh	tidak boleh	cannot
ko	engkau	you
nape	kenapa	why
camne	macam mana/bagaimana	how
gi	pergi	go
kat	dekat/di	at
ne	mana	where
tau	tahu	know
je	sahaja	only
a'ah	ya	that's right
awek	gadis	girl/girlfriend
balak	pemuda	boy/boyfriend
skodeng	mengintai	peep
cun	cantik	awesome/cool/fly
jom	mari	let's go
poyo/selenge	teruk	horrible
blah	beredar	go away
meh	mari	come
apsal	apa pasal	why
tak yah	tidak payah	not necessary
pastu	selepas itu	after that
amik	ambil	take
pekena	makan/minum	to eat/drink

There are also words used by LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual) community which are unique to them. This slang is widely called, bahasa nyah. For example:

Non-formal Word	Formal Word	English Translation
dosi	sudah	have, done, completed
choi	celaka	damn
uols	engkau	you
motif	kenapa	why
harus	harus/wajib	must
cikcur	melacur	hooking
deyols	mereka	them
ciknek	zakar	penis
cikki/kiki/lala/pepuks	wanita	women
jah/jork/sajork	sahaja	only
noks	kak	sister
gorgonz	kacak	gorgeous
hanjeng	anjing	dog
ciktek	payu dara	breast
vranganz	berangan	dreaming
gerdus	gersang	horny
koser	kuasa	can, able
dinch	tidak	no
ado	hodoh	ugly
nan ado	tidak berfungsi	malfunction
vogi	anggun	vogue
vass	hebat, dahsyat	vast
kekwat	sombong	arrogant
gayah	homoseks	gay, homosexual
veryder	sangat	very
tacap	bersolek	makeup, makeover
kaedahnya	bagaimanapun	however
katanya	fakta	facts
over	melampau	over, so much, overboard
sesuatuh	menimbulkan syak	curious
sesuwei/sesowei	sesuai	appropriate
apom	rogol	rape
sentap	terasa	annoyed, irritated
taste/tasty	citarasa	type, taste
menjalang	berlayar	cruising
cikcap	melancap	masturbate
anak ikan	lelaki muda	young men
askoke	askar	army
clust	taraf tinggi	high class
muskuls	berotot	muscular, athletic
mrasa	rasakan	take that
dragoon	berpakaian wanita	drag queen
mak/iols/hem	saya	me, I
sheols	dia (perempuan)	she/her
heols	dia (lelaki)	he/his
melertz	meletup	exploding
gurik senja	pondan tua	old faggot
chantek	cantik	beautiful
charutan	mengejek	teasing
ittew	itu	that
innew	ini	this
gittew	gitu	like that
can-do/can-dew	boleh tahan	not bad
vley?	boleh?	can?
sinnew	sini	here
sittew	sana	there
bagai	dan lain-lain	etc.
segala	semua	all
hokey	baiklah	okay
taw	tau	know
feeling2	mengidamkan	acting like someone
gigih	rajin	hardworking
curlast	mengagumkan	amazing
larik	lari	run
kan/khan/khen	ya	yes

Dictionary

There are not many different Malay dictionaries. In Malaysia, the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP)'s Kamus Dewan dictionary is the chief arbiter for the language, and is considered the authority in defining Malay usage. Some other dictionaries are:

• Kamus Dewan (Institute Dictionary)
• Kamus Pelajar (Student Dictionary)
• Kamus Oxford (Oxford Dictionary)
• Kamus Besar (Big Dictionary)

See also

• The list of Malay words and list of words of Malay origin at Wiktionary, the free dictionary and Wikipedia's sibling project

• Differences between Malay and Indonesian
• Indonesian language
• Jawi, an adapted Arabic alphabet for Malay
• Language politics
• List of English words of Malay origin
• Malay-based creole languages
• Malaysian English, English language used formally in Malaysia.
• Manado Malay
• Minangkabau language
• Rojak language
• Swadesh list of Malay words
• Varieties of Malay

External links

• The Extent of the Influence of Tamil on the Malay Language: A Comparative Study - Dr. T.Wignesan
• Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (Institute of Language and Literature Malaysia, in Malay only)
• Ethnologue report for Malay
• Malay - English Online Dictionary (Dr Bhanot's)
• Malay - English Online Dictionary (from Malay to English only) from Webster's Dictionary
• Malay - Chinese Online Dictionary (ekamus)
• Malay - English - Chinese Online Dictionary (cari.com.my)
• Online Malay Text-to-Speech Demo
• The Malay Spelling Reform, Asmah Haji Omar, (Journal of the Simplified Spelling Society, 1989-2 pp. 9–13 later designated J11)