Distribution

THE REPUBLIC OF INDONESIA, THE FEDERATION OF MALAYSIA, THE REPUBLIC OF SINGAPORE AND THE SULTANATE OF BRUNEI; southern and western coasts of Borneo, southernmost provinces of Thailand, Mergui Archipelago of Burma. Malay-based creoles are found not only among the originally Chinese speaking inhabitants of the old Straits Settlements of former British Malaya, but also in various ports of eastern Indonesia and on Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean.

Introduction

The Malay or Malay/Indonesian (M/I) language belongs to the western Austronesian group of languages. A variety of Malay is an official language in four Southeast Asian countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, and some sort of standard formal Malay exists or is being developed by official bodies in these countries. Standard Malay in Malaysia and Indonesia serves as a means of communication for administration and political integration and as a mark of national identity in these two countries; it is used for academic, philosophical and professional communication as well as in literary writing. Most commonly, Malay/Indonesian is considered to constitute either a single language, or else two very closely related languages. Despite some marked differences between the two varieties in lexicon, pronunciation, grammatical choices and features of discourse organisation, the standard forms are mutually intelligible. As Malaysian and Indonesian students are schooled in Standard Malay in both countries, the linguistic problems they may encounter in learning and using the English language are quite similar.