from Part Three - Language Spread
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 June 2022
Five-hundred years ago, Europeans finally “discovered” Malay, the undisputed language of Southeast Asian commerce and diplomacy of that time. In this chapter, we look into the role of Malay in the early modern era so we can understand the processes that have contributed to its continued diffusion and diversification in this century. We look at the spread of Malay, not by mass migration, but through language convergence and language shift. Malay, whether a national language (named Malay and Indonesian) or a local dialect spoken by a small ethnic minority, is one of the world’s major languages. Its geographic and demographic expansion can be linked to numerous factors, among them: language shift as a component of broader cultural change; consolidation of diverse ethnicities; immigrant accommodation to the majority population; and early use in national educational systems. But the underlying basis and strength of Malay is its centuries old geographic and societal diffusion. On the one hand, its national-language status has triggered the significant growth we are witnessing now. On the other hand, the creativity of its speakers using diverse social and regional dialects sustains that growth, reflected in its large profile in today’s electronic media, such as Facebook.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.