Malay language
Malay language Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the national language of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei, and it is one of four official languages of Singapore. It is spoken natively by 40 million people across the Malacca Strait, including the coasts of the Malay Peninsula of Malaysia and the eastern coast of Sumatra in Indonesia, and has been established as a native language of part of western coastal Sarawak and West Kalimantan in Borneo. The total number of speakers of the language is more than 215 million. As the Bahasa Kebangsaan or Bahasa Nasional of several states, Standard Malay has various official names. In Singapore and Brunei it is called Bahasa Melayu ( Malay language ); in Malaysia, Bahasa Malaysia (Malaysian language); and in Indonesia, Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian language) and is designated the Bahasa Persatuan/Pemersatu ("unifying language/lingua franca"). However, in areas of central to southern Sumatra where the language is in...