Ancient Malay
The Ancient Malay or Proto Malay is the language believed to exist in prehistoric times, spoken by the early Austronesian settlers in the region. Its ancestor, the Proto-Malayo-Polynesian language that derived from Proto-Austronesian, began to break up by at least 2000 BCE as a result possibly by the southward expansion of Austronesian peoples into the Philippines, Borneo, Maluku and Sulawesi. Proto-Malay language was spoken in Borneo at least by 1000 BCE and was, it has been argued, the ancestral language of all subsequent Malay dialects. Linguists generally agree that the homeland of the Malayic-Dayak languages is in Borneo, based on its geographic spread in the interior, its variations that are not due to contact-induced change, and its sometimes conservative character. Around the beginning of the first millenium, Malayic speakers had established settlements in the coastal regions of modern day South Central Vietnam, Tambelan, Riau Islands, Sumatra, Malay peninsula, Borneo, Luzon, Maluku Islands, Bangka-Belitung Islands and Java.
Read more about this topic: History Of The Malay Language
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