Ethnic Malays

Ethnic Malays

Malays (Malay: Melayu Jawi: ملايو) are an ethnic group of Austronesian people predominantly inhabiting the Malay Peninsula including the coastal Indonesian including east of Sumatra, southernmost parts of Thailand, south coast Burma and island of Singapore, coastal Borneo, including Brunei, West Kalimantan, coastal Sarawak and Sabah, and the smaller islands which lie between these locations - collectively known as the Alam Melayu. These locations today are part of the modern nations of Malaysia, Western Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei, Southern Burma and Southern Thailand.

Historically, the ethnic Malays population is descended from several genetically related peoples who were largely of Animist, Buddhist or Hindu origin —the Austronesians, the Mon-Khmer peoples, the Orang Laut, the Orang Asli, the Cham people, the ancient Kedahans, the Langkasukans, the Tambralingans, the Gangga Negarans, the ancient Kelantanese, the Srivijayans, the ancient Bruneians, the Batak groups, the Dayak peoples and various other tribes inhabiting the Malay world.

The golden age of Malay sultanates beginning in the 15th century, saw the construction of the common identity that binds Malay people together; language (with variant of dialects exist among them), Islam and their culture. The commercial diaspora of these sultanates, effectively brought much of the Maritime Southeast Asia under the massive wave of Islamisation and Malayisation. Due to its fluid characteristics and the assimilation of the later immigrants from various part of the archipelago, Malay culture absorbed numerous cultural features of other ethnic groups, such as those of Minang, Aceh, and to some degree Javanese culture; however it differs by being more overtly Islamic than the Javanese culture which is more multi-religious.