History of The Malay Language - Classical Malay (14th Century - 18th Century)

18th Century)

The period of Classical Malay started when Islam gained its foothold in the region and the elevation of its status to a state religion. As a result of Islamisation and growth in trade with the Muslim world, this era witnessed the penetration of Arabic and Persian vocabulary as well as the integration of major Islamic cultures with local Malay culture. Earliest instances of Arabic lexicons incorporated in the pre-classical Malay written in Kawi was found in the Minyetujoh inscription dated 1380 from Acheh. Pre-Classical Malay took on a more radical form as attested in the 1303 CE Terengganu Inscription Stone and the 1468 CE Pengkalan Kempas Inscription from Malay peninsula. Both inscriptions not only serve as the evidence of Islam as a state religion, but also as the oldest surviving speciment of the dominant classical orthographic form, the Jawi script. Similar inscriptions containing various adopted Arabic terms with some of them still written the indianized scripts were also discovered in Sumatra and Borneo.

The Pre-Classical Malay evolved and reached its refined form during the golden age of the Malay empire of Melaka and its successor Johor starting from the 15th century. As a bustling port city with a diverse population of 200,000 from different nations, the largest in Southeast Asia at that time, Melaka became a melting pot of different cultures and languages. More loan words from Arab, Persian, Tamil and Chinese were absorbed and the period witnessed the flowering of Malay literature as well as professional development in royal leadership and public administration. In contrast with Old Malay, the literary themes of Melaka had expanded beyond the decorative belles-lettres and theological works, evidenced with the inclusion of accountancy, maritime laws, credit notes and trade licenses in its literary tradition. Some prominent manuscripts of this category are Hukum Kanun Melaka (Melakan Canonial Laws) and Undang-Undang Laut Melaka (Melakan Maritime Laws). The literary tradition was further enriched with the translations of various foreign literary works such as Hikayat Muhammad Hanafiah and Hikayat Amir Hamzah, and the emergence of new intellectual writings in philosophy, tasawuf, tafsir, history and many others in Malay, represented by manuscripts like Sulalatus al-Salatin and Furu' Al-Masa'il.

Melaka's success as a centre of commerce, religion, and literary output has made it an important point of cultural reference to the many influential Malay sultanates in the later centuries. This has resulted the growing importance of Classical Malay as the sole lingua franca of the region. Through inter-ethnic contact and trade, the Classical Malay spread beyond the traditional Malay speaking world and resulted in a trade language that was called Bahasa Melayu pasar ("Bazaar Malay") or Bahasa Melayu rendah ("Low Malay") as opposed to Bahasa Melayu tinggi (High Malay) of Melaka-Johor. It is generally believed that Bazaar Malay was a pidgin, perhaps influenced by contact between Malay, Chinese and non-Malay natives traders. The most important development, however, has been that pidgin Malay creolized, creating several new languages such as the Ambonese Malay, Manado Malay, Makassar Malay and Betawi language. Apart from being the primary instrument in spreading Islam and commercial activities, Malay also became a court and literary language for kingdoms beyond its traditional realm like Aceh, Banjar and Ternate and also used in diplomatic communications with the European colonial powers. This is evidenced from diplomatic letters from Sultan Abu Hayat II of Ternate to King John III of Portugal dated from 1521 to 1522, a letter from Sultan Alauddin Riayat Shah of Aceh to Captain Sir Harry Middleton of the East India Company dated 1602, and a golden letter from Sultan Iskandar Muda of Aceh to King James I of England dated 1615.

The early phase of European colonization in Southeast Asia began with the arrival of the Portuguese in 16th century and the Dutch in 17th century. This period also marked the dawn of Christianization in the region with its stronghold in Ambon, Banda and Batavia. In facilitating early missionary works, religious books and manuscripts began to be translated into Malay of which the earliest was initiated by a pious Dutch trader, Albert Ruyll in 1611. The book titled Sovrat A B C and written in Latin alphabet not only means in introducing Latin alphabet but also the basic tenets of Calvinism that includes the Ten Commandments, the faith and some prayers. This work later followed by several Bibles translated into Malay; Injil Mateus dan Markus (1638), Lukas dan Johanes (1646), Injil dan Perbuatan (1651), Kitab Kejadian (1662), Perjanjian Baru (1668) and Mazmur (1689).

The era of Classical Malay also witnessed the growing interest among foreigners in learning the Malay language for the purpose of commerce, diplomatic missions and missionary activities. Therefore, many books in the form of word-list or dictionary were written. The oldest of these was a Chinese-Malay word list compiled by the Ming officials during the heyday of Melaka Sultanate. The dictionary was known as Ma La Jia Guo Yi Yu (Words-list of Melaka Kingdom) and contains 482 entries categorized into 17 fields namely astronomy, geography, seasons and times, plants, birds and animals, houses and palaces, human behaviours and bodies, gold and jewelleries, social and history, colours, measurements and general words. In the 16th century, the word-list is believed still in use in China when a royal archive official Yang Lin reviewed the record in 1560 CE. In 1522, the first European-Malay word-list was compiled by an Italian explorer Antonio Pigafetta, who joined the Magellan's circumnavigation expedition. The Italian-Malay word-list by Pigafetta contains approximately 426 entries and became the main reference for the later Latin-Malay and French-Malay dictionaries.