Malay

Malay is an Austronesian language native to the Malay Peninsula and maritime Southeast Asia. The earliest surviving Old Malay text, the Kedukan Bukit inscription of 683, is written in a Pallava-derived Grantha script and heavy with Sanskrit loanwords. Srivijaya carried Old Malay through the ports of the peninsula and archipelago as a traders' lingua franca.

The Terengganu stone of 1303 is the oldest known Jawi inscription, marking Islam's arrival and an influx of Arabic vocabulary. Under the Malacca Sultanate of 1402–1511 Classical Malay became the region's language of trade, letters and Islamic learning. The Portuguese took Malacca in 1511, moving Malay's literary centre to Johor, yet Malay remained a lingua franca as far east as the Moluccas.

The Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 split the Malay world into British and Dutch spheres. Their administrations codified separate Malay and Indonesian standards.