Ethnic Malays

The free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the Malay ethnic group. For the Malay "race", see Malay race. For other uses, see Malay (disambiguation). 0Malay Melayu ملايو Enrique of MalaccaHamzah HazHang Tuah Hassanal Bolkiah of BruneiDato LatMahathir Mohamad SalomaSiti NurhalizaSurin Putsuwan Sheikh Muszaphar ShukorTunku Abdul RahmanPengiran Anak Sarah Yusof bin IshakYunalis ZaraiAbu Bakar of Johor 1st row: Enrique of Malacca • Hamzah Haz • Hang Tuah  2nd row: Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei • Lat • Mahathir Mohamad  3rd row: Saloma • Siti Nurhaliza • Surin Pitsuwan  4th row: Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor • Tunku Abdul Rahman • Crown Princess Sarah  5th row: Yusof Ishak• Yunalis Zarai • Abu Bakar of Johor Total population c. 27.8 million Regions with significant populations Majority populations               

Malaysia      14,749,378 (2010 estimate)      [1]

Brunei         261,902 (2010 estimate)           [2]

Minority populations               

Indonesia    8,789,585 (2010 estimate)        [3][4]

Thailand      3,354,475 (2010 estimate)        [5][6]

Singapore    653,449 (2010 estimate)           [7][8]

Languages

Malay, Indonesian, Yawi, Thai, English

Religion

Sunni Islam (approx. 99.9%)[9]

Malays (Malay: Melayu, Jawi: ملايو) are an ethnic group of Austronesian people predominantly inhabiting the Malay Peninsula including the southernmost parts of Thailand, south coast Myanmar and island of Singapore, coastal Indonesian including east of Sumatra, coastal Borneo, including Brunei, coastal Sarawak and Sabah, and the smaller islands which lie between these locations. These locations today is part of the modern nations of Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Southern Myanmar, Southern Thailand and Western Indonesia.

Today, the common identity that binds Malay people together is their language (with variant of dialects exist among them), Islam and their culture;[10] although in the past Malay people were largely animist and Hindu-Buddhist before conversion to Islam took place in the 15th century. Malay culture has a number of similarities with cultures of neighboring ethnic groups, such as those of Minang culture, Aceh, and to some degree Javanese culture; however it differs by being more overtly Islamic than the Javanese culture which is more multi-religious.

The name "Malay" (Chinese: Mo-Lo-Yu or local inscription: Malayu) was first mentioned in a Chinese account in the 644 CE to report the existence of a Malay kingdom in the southern islands of the (Malay archipelago). At that time, "Malayu" might have referred to the Melayu Kingdom on the east coast of Sumatra that centered around the Jambi area.[10] From that time onward, the term "Malay" has evolved from a kingdom in Jambi to identifying the ethnic group that inhabits the region on both sides of Malacca strait and beyond. One of the logical explanations of the name origin has been verified in other languages, such as the Tamil word malaiyur, used to refer the mountainous region where the civilization of Kadaram was founded in Kedah (today), or the Javanese word mlayu (to run) derived from mlaku (to walk or to travel), or the Malay term melaju (to steadily accelerate), to refer the high mobility and migratory nature of its people, however these suggestions remain as popular local beliefs without corroborating evidence.