My first courses in Bahasa Melayu helped me really understand the difference between the different standards of the standard language of Malay. This is some of the clarification I got early! Standard Malay is the official language of Malaysia and one of the four official languages of Singapore (along with English, Mandarin, and Tamil). It is also spoken in Indonesia, and Brunei, and is used as a working language in East Timor. It is spoken by 10.5 million people in Malaysia with a population total for all countries: of 15.8 million speakers of Malay as a first language with an additional 3 million second-language speakers.
In Malaysia, the language is known as Bahasa Melayu or Bahasa Malaysia. Since 1968, Standard Malay has been the official language of Malaysia. However, the language of wider communication in colloquial Malay. As a vestige of colonization, English has still considered a prestigious language among the educated classes. It continues to be used in the majority of institutions of higher education. However, Malay is officially the medium of scientific, administrative, legal, and other official matters. Malay and English are the two co-official languages of Brunei. Malay is spoken by over half of the population. English is widely used, especially by the Chinese and Indian minorities, because of its importance as the language of international business. In Singapore, Malay was historically the lingua franca among people who spoke different languages, but it has been replaced by English. Today, it retains the status of a national language. 15% of Singapore’s population speak Malay. Known as called Bahasa Indonesia, it is spoken by 23 million people as a first language and by 140 million people as a second language. It has become the lingua franca for its numerous ethnic groups who speak a wide variety of languages. In East Timor (a province of Indonesia from 1976 to 1999), Bahasa Indonesia is widely spoken and recognized by its Constitution as a working language. There are two main dialect divisions characterized mainly by differences in pronunciation and, to a lesser extent, by differences in vocabulary:
- The northern dialect, referred to as Malay, is spoken in Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei.
- The southern dialect is spoken in Indonesia. It is further subdivided into western and eastern varieties which, in turn, have a number of regional dialects. Standard Indonesian is based on the formal variety of the language spoken in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia.
The language is characterized by significant differences between formal and informal registers. The formal register is used in public speeches, formal writing, and educational settings. It is characterized by a significant number of borrowings from Sanskrit, Arabic, and other foreign languages. It is referred to as Standard Malay. There are few first-language speakers of Standard Malay, most people learn it as a second dialect. The informal register is used in everyday conversations. It is characterized by a significant number of borrowings from local languages. It is referred to as colloquial, or informal, Malay.
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