Bornean

The Bornean languages, in the grouping used here, unite western Malayo-Polynesian tongues of the Greater Sunda region: the Malayic languages headed by Malay, the Chamic speech carried to mainland Champa, Sundanese of Java, and Borneo's Dayak and Kayanic varieties. Linguists connect this cluster with Austronesian settlers who reached Borneo from the Philippines and then spread along its coasts.

Malay became a language of trade. The Kedukan Bukit inscription of 683, cut in southern Sumatra in a Pallava-derived script, is the earliest Old Malay text, and between the 600s and 1000s Srivijaya carried Old Malay through the ports of the peninsula and the archipelago.

The Terengganu stone of 1303 shows Malay written in the Arabic-derived Jawi script, and under the Malacca Sultanate of the 1400s Classical Malay became the lingua franca of maritime trade.