- Old Malay
The Old Malay is possibly the ancestor of
Malay language , including Indonesian. It was heavily influenced bySanskrit , thelingua franca ofHinduism andBuddhism , as most of the Malays used to embrace these religions.History
According to The Encyclopedia of Malaysia, vol. Languages & Literature, p22, p23, the history of written Malay dates back at least 1500 years. The history of
Malay language may be divided into four periods.Old Malay
The oldest dated 682 CE, is the
Kedukan Bukit Inscription found nearPalembang , and several other inscriptions dating from 7th to 9th centuries have been found inSumatra , westernJava and others. These ancient texts are considered examples of 'Old Malay' or 'Early Malay'. All these inscriptions were in the form of IndianPallava script, characterized by extensive Sanskrit loan words, which lasted until 17th century.Transitional Period
In the transitional period, the ‘Early Modern Malay’ was found at
Terengganu in the 14th century, the famous Batu Bersurat inArabic , and in within, there was a MalayKawi text ofJava nese mixed with Arabic, found in the inscribed stones ofPengkalan Kempas . The Batu Bersurat text has large number of Sanskrit terms which are now obsolete. This is a characteristic of Old Malay, the grammatical system is similar to modern Malay.Malacca Period
At the
Sultanate of Malacca ,the Malay language develops rapidly in trade and the spread of Islam and Islamic literature . The development changed the nature of the language with massive infusion of Arabic, Persian and laterHindi vocabularies. The development slows down after 1511 with the fall of Malacca to Portuguese.Late Modern Malay
Malay had developed into a major language of
Southeast Asia in the 19th century. The language absorbed many loan words from Portuguese, Dutch and later English. It became national languages ofMalaysia ,Indonesia andSingapore after independence.References
* "The Encyclopedia of Malaysia: Languages & Literature" by Prof. Dato' Dr Asmah Haji Omar (2004) ISBN 981-3018-52-6.
malay went in philippines. this places are the palawan,visayas, nd mindanao
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