Malayic

Malayic is a linguistic subgroup of the Austronesian language family, within the Malayo-Polynesian branch. It comprises languages traditionally spoken in the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, western Borneo, and adjacent archipelago regions. The most widely known Malayic languages are Standard Malay and Indonesian, which are standardized varieties of the same language continuum and function as official or widely used lingua franca in their respective countries.

Geographically, Malayic languages extend from western Sumatra through the Malay Peninsula and Borneo, with varieties spoken across parts of Sumatra, Kalimantan, and coastal areas of the surrounding islands. The best-known representatives are Indonesian, the national language of Indonesia, and Malay, used in Malaysia and Brunei and, in standardized form, Singapore. Other Malayic languages include Minangkabau (Sumatra), Banjar and Banjarese (Kalimantan), and various local varieties across the region.

Linguistically, Malayic languages tend to be analytic with relatively simple inflectional morphology and a subject-verb-object word order. Core vocabulary reflects inheritance from Proto-Malayic, with substantial borrowings from Sanskrit and Arabic in historical periods, and from Portuguese, Dutch, and English in more recent times. Most Malayic languages today use a Latin-based alphabet, while Jawi Arabic script has historical use for several varieties.

In scholarship, Malayic is recognized as a branch of Malayo-Polynesian, though precise internal relationships are debated among linguists. The classification can vary between studies, but Malay-Indonesian is widely treated as a single, closely related language continuum rather than two wholly separate languages.