Malay belongs to the Austronesian languages and is the official language of Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei. It is also spoken in the south of the Philippines, in Southern Thailand, and in part of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. In total, 77 million people speak Malay. The Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian) is based on Malay dialects and is spoken as a first or second language by 150 to 200 million people. This means Malay is an important lingua franca (common communication language) throughout the entire region.

A common language

The official standard for Malay (also known as Bahasa Riau, or, language of the Riau Archipelago) is the result of extensive research and consultation, because creating a standard was no easy task. The search for original Malay was unsuccessful, because wherever people looked, all they found were varieties. And the origin of High Malay also remained unclear. It would have been desirable to use High Malay as a starting point for Standard Malay, because the Low Malay dialects spoken by the population were somewhat looked down upon. But it would not be so. The only option – just like in Indonesia – was to arrange spoken Malay and promote it into the new standard language.

New language, new dialects