Malay Etnic

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Malays (Malay: Melayu) are an ethnic group of Austronesian peoples predominantly inhabiting the Malay Peninsula including the southernmost parts of Thailand, the east coast of Sumatra, the coast of Borneo, and the smaller islands which lie between these locations. The Malay ethnic group is distinct from the concept of a Malay race, which encompasses a wider group of people, including most of Indonesia and the Philippines. The Malay language is a member of the Austronesian family of languages.

History

The Encyclopedia of Malaysia: Early History, has pointed out a total of three theories of the origin of Malay:

1. The Yunnan theory, Mekong river migration (published 1889)
2. The New Guinea theory (published 1965)
3. The Taiwan theory (published 1997)

The ancestor of Malays are believed to be seafarers knowledgeable in oceanography. They moved around from island to island in great distances between New Zealand and Madagascar, and they served as navigation guide, crew and labour to Indian, Persian and Chinese traders for nearly 2000 years. Over the years they settled at various places and adopted various cultures and religions. Notable Malay seafarers of today are Moken and Orang laut.

Some historians suggested they were descendants of Austronesian-speakers who migrated from the Philippines and originally came from Taiwan. Malay culture reached its golden age during Srivijayan times and they practiced Buddhism, Hinduism, and their native Animism before converting to Islam in the 15th century.

Etymology

In the History of Jambi, the word Melayu originated from a river with name Melayu River near to Batang Hari River of today’s Muara Jambi, Jambi province of Sumatra, Indonesia and even a Melayu Kingdom existed from the record of Yi Jing (a Tang Dynasty Buddhist monk) and archaeological research of Jambi, large numbers of ancient artifacts and ancient architectures of the Melayu Kingdom have been found with photo evidence. However further tracing the root of the word, a small town in Tamil district appeared called Malai Yur which means “Land of Mountains” (malai means mountain and yur means land), a reference to the hilly nature of the Malay Archipelago. Other ancient Indian sources , the Purana text, claimed “Malayadvipa” on Sumatra with the meaning ‘dvipa’ land surrounded by water, while the ancient Sanskrit word Himalaya means ’snow mountain’. “Maleu-kolon” was used by Ptolemy which was also derived from Sanskrit ‘malayakom’ or ‘malaikurram’, according to G. E. Gerini that was to refer to Tanjung Kuantan while Roland Bradell claimed it on Tanjung Penyabung, both in the peninsula. (see Tamil place names in Malaysia)

The word Melayu began in use during the time of Sultanate of Melaka, founded by the fleeing prince Parameswara, from the declining Melayu Kingdom of Srivijaya in Palembang. And the word was in popular use in 17th century onwards.

During the European colonization, the word “Malay” was adopted into English via the Dutch word “Malayo”, itself from Portuguese “Malaio”, which originates from the Malay word “Melayu”. According to one popular theory, the word Melayu means “migrating” or “fleeing”, which might refer to the high mobility of these people across the region (cf. Javanese verb ‘mlayu’ means “to run”, cognate with Malay verb ‘melaju’, means “to accelerate”) or perhaps the original meaning is “distant, far away” (cf. Tagalog ‘malayo’) with the root word ‘layo’, which means ‘distance’ or ‘far’ in Tagalog and some Malayo-Polynesian languages.