Malaysian or Standard Malay is the official language of Malaysia and a standardized register of the Malacca dialect of Malay. It is over 80% cognate with Indonesian and is spoken natively by over 10 million people. As a second language, it is spoken by an estimated 18 million, mostly Malaysians from ethnic minorities.
In 1957, Article 152 of the Federation designated Malay as the official language. Between 1986 and 2007, the official term Bahasa ...
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Malaysian or Standard Malay is the official language of Malaysia and a standardized register of the Malacca dialect of Malay. It is over 80% cognate with Indonesian and is spoken natively by over 10 million people. As a second language, it is spoken by an estimated 18 million, mostly Malaysians from ethnic minorities.
In 1957, Article 152 of the Federation designated Malay as the official language. Between 1986 and 2007, the official term Bahasa Malaysia was replaced by "Bahasa Melayu". Today, Bahasa Malaysia is now once again the government's preferred designation for the "Bahasa Kebangsaan" (National Language). The language is sometimes simply referred to as Bahasa or BM.
The Malaysian language is normally written using a Latin alphabet called Rumi, though an Arabic alphabet called Jawi also exists. Rumi is official while efforts are currently being undertaken to preserve Jawi script and to revive its use in Malaysia. The Latin alphabet, however, is still the most commonly used...
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