The Malay language is very ancient and comprises of a huge family of languages. Whereas the Malays (Rumpun Melayu of 350 million people) constitute only 6% of the total population of the world (6 billion people), the large family of Malay languages (totalling 1,268) represent 22% of the number of languages in the world (totalling 6,000).
These are actual languages in the scientific and linguistic sense. If dialects are included, the number is larger still.
Scientists who have studied the family of Malay languages include the following:
1. 1772-75 Dr Reinhold Forster who accompanied Captain Cook in his 2nd voyage to the South Pacific. He compiled a list of words from 11 languages in several islands there and compared them with words of the same meaning in the Malay language and with 3 languages in South America. He found them having similarities with the Malay language but none at all with the South American languages.
2. 1776-80 Anderson, another scientist travelling with Captain Cook studied the numericals used in various islands of Polynesia and in Madagascar and compared them with those used in the Malay language. He found very clear similarities among them.
3. About 1800, a Spanish Jesuit priest, Abbe Lorenzo Herves, confirmed that the Malay language, the language used in Madagascar, and the languages of the Polynesian islands belong to the same family.This priest was recorded as the person who had made "the most remarkable discovery in the history of linguistic studies, being the identification of one family of spoken languages, namely the Malay and the Polynesian languages, which were spread very far and wide from the Island of Madagascar across a 208 degree angle to Easter Island" - L. Andrews, "A Dictionary of the Hawaiian Language", 1977, pg 7.
4. Some years after that, a European scholar, William Marsden, also identified the oneness of the languages referred to by Herves and called them "The Great Polynesian" (Language).
5. In 1836, a leading Linguist, William Von Humboldt, carried out a large and comprehensive study, comparing 9 languages in the family of the Malay language - Malay, Malagasy (Madagascar), Javanese, Buginese, Tagalog (Philippines), Maori, Tonga, Tahitian and Hawaiian. He concluded that these languages belong to the same civilization - the Malay civilization.
Given below are the number of Malay languages found in selected areas:
Peninsular Malaysia : 1 (+4 orang asli languages)
Sumatra : 22 languages
Java : 3 languages
Philippines :160 languages
Borneo :153 languages
Sulawesi :114 languages
Taiwan : 23 languages
Madagascar : 11 languages.
The Spread of the Malays -
How old is this Malay race, Malay Polynesia or Austronesia race?
In the 20th Century, various studies have been carried out on the migration and movement of the Malay people who have crossed the
Pacific and Indian Oceans. Linguistic and archaeological studies especially since the 1950s have contributed a lot towards finding the age of the Malay race.
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