As a traditional Malay, we speak our mother-tongue known as Bahasa Melayu.
There are many hypotheses as to where the Malay language originated. One of these is that it came from Sumatra island. The oldest inscriptions in Malay, dating from the end of the 7th century AD, were found on Bangka Island, off the southeastern coast of Sumatra (the Kedukan Bukit Inscription) 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. At the time of European colonization, the Johor-Riau Sultanate had ascendancy. Since the 15th century, the Johor-Riau dialect of Malay had been used as a lingua franca throughout the Malay Archipelago, as the similar dialect of Malacca had been used before it. When Johor-Riau was divided between British Malaya (Johor) and the Dutch East Indies (Riau), its language was accorded official status in both territories.
Indonesia pronounced Riau (Johor) Malay its official language (Bahasa Indonesia) when it gained independence. Since 1928, nationalists and young people throughout the Indonesian archipelago had declared Malay to be Indonesia's only official language, as proclaimed in the Sumpah Pemuda "Youth Vow." Thus Indonesia was the first country to designate Malay as an official language.
Now for a short lesson on how to speak Bahasa Melayu. I'm just giving you guys a brief introduction on the basics of the Bahasa. Maybe you guys can use it when any of you visit Malaysia.
The following are the topics I'm going to teach in the video...
- Greetings
- Family
- Fruits
- Numbers
- Animals
