Station
identification: Inilah Radio Malaysia , meaning "This
is Radio Malaysia" Spoken in Malaysia and Indonesia.
These are basically the same languages and are gradually moving closer together. They share a common vowel system: a, e, i, o, u (like Spanish ) plus a short 'e (as in Penang). The sound ung is quite common. Plurals are created through repetition of the singular word.
Malay can be distingushed from Indonesian by the English borrowings and the overall British sound of the speakers, while Indonesian sounds vaguely Dutch in character. In Indonesian, the r sound is strong.
Contribution from tarum@pacific.net.sg
:
"More than 200 million Indonesians speak Bahasa Indonesia
while some 23 million Malaysians speak Bahasa Malaysia. Both
Bahasa Indonesia & Bahasa Malaysia are Malay. Also, at least
450,000 ethnic Malay Singaporeans speak Malay. Malay is also
national language of the 3 million multiracial Singaporeans.
There are also significant minority Malay communities in South
Africa, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Australia etc."
Station
identification: Inilah Radio Malaysia , meaning "This
is Radio Malaysia"
| Name | Where spoken | Language Family | How many (000s) |
| Malay | Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Thailand, Sumatra, Borneo, Java, and surrounding areas | Austronesian | 100 - 160m |
Table source: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, David Ctystal, Cambridge University Press
[Articles/_private/langnavbar.htm]