Malay Indonesian

Malay Indonesians
Melayu Indonesia
ملايو ايندونيسيا

A Riau Malay couple enjoying the traditional Gambus. The background panel incorporated the palettes of Malay tricolour.
Total population
(IndonesiaIndonesia 8,789,585 (2010 estimate))
Regions with significant populations
South Sumatra: 2,139,000
Riau: 1,880,240
West Kalimantan: 1,259,890[1]
Bangka-Belitung: 936,000
Jambi: 914,660
Riau Islands: 600,108
North Sumatra: 582,100
Lampung: 269,240
Jakarta: 165,039
Bengkulu: 125,120
Central Kalimantan: 87,222
Languages
Malay (Varieties of Malay), Indonesian
Religion
Sunni Islam (predominantly), also nondenominational Muslim
Related ethnic groups
Malays, Minangkabau, Acehnese, Banjarese, Betawi.

Malay Indonesians (Malay and Indonesian: Melayu Indonesia; Jawi script: ملايو ايندونيسيا) are ethnic Malays living throughout Indonesia as one of the indigenous peoples of the island nation. Indonesia has the second largest ethnic Malay population after Malaysia. Historically, Indonesian, which is the national language of Indonesia, was derived from the Malay language spoken in Riau archipelago, a province in eastern Sumatra. There were a number of Malay kingdoms in Indonesia that covered the islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan, such as Srivijaya, Melayu Kingdom, Sultanate of Deli, Sultanate of Siak Sri Indrapura, Riau-Lingga Sultanate, Sultanate of Bulungan, Pontianak Sultanate, and the Sultanate of Sambas.

History

Sumatra

There have been various Malay kingdoms there were based on the island of Sumatra: from the Melayu Kingdom, Srivijaya, Sultanate of Deli, Sultanate of Siak Sri Indrapura and Riau-Lingga Sultanate.

Kalimantan

In the Pontianak incidents during the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies, the Japanese massacred most of the Malay elite and beheaded all of the Malay Sultans in Kalimantan.

During the Fall of Suharto, there was a resurgence in Malay nationalism and identity in Kalimantan and ethnic Malays and Dayaks in Sambas massacred Madurese during the Sambas riots.

Language

A Palembangese Malay girl clad in the Gending Sriwijaya costume.

Sumatra is the homeland of the Malay languages, which today spans to all corners of Insular Southeast Asia. The Indonesian language which is the country's official language and lingua franca was based on Riau-Lingga (or Johor-Riau) Malay. The Malay language has a long history, which has a literary record as far back as 7th century AD. The famous early Malay inscriptions are Kedukan Bukit Inscription, it was discovered by the Dutchman M. Batenburg on 29 November 1920, at Kedukan Bukit, South Sumatra, on the banks of the River Tatang, a tributary of the River Musi. It is a small stone of 45 by 80 cm. It is written in Old Malay, a possible ancestor of today's Malay language and it's variants. Most Malay languages and dialects spoken in Indonesia are mutually unintelligible to Standard Indonesian. The most widely spoken are Palembang Malay (3.2 million), Jambi Malay (1 million), Bengkulu Malay (1.6 million) and Banjarese (4 million) (although not considered to be a dialect of Malay by its speakers, it's minor dialect is typically called Bukit Malay). Besides the proper Malay languages, there are several languages closely related to Malay such as Minangkabau, Kerinci, Kubu and others. These languages are closely related to Malay but do not considered their language to be Malay by its speakers. There are many Malay-based creoles spoken in the country especially in eastern Indonesia due to contacts from western part of Indonesia and during colonial rule where Malay replaced Dutch as a lingua franca. The most well known Malay creoles in Indonesia are Ambonese Malay, Betawi, Manado Malay and Papuan Malay.

Malayic ethnicity

Malay ethnic groups in Indonesia

Cognate ethnicity in Sumatra

Malay women of Sumatra, 1912.
A Kutainese Malay lady in Residency of South and East Kalimantan, Dutch East Indies. Lithography to an original watercolour c.1879–1880.

Cognate ethnicity in Kalimantan

Cognate ethnicity in Java

Notable Malay Indonesians

Literature

Royalty

Three men in ceremonial dress
Malay princes of East Sumatra from the Royal Houses of Deli, Langkat and Serdang.

Politics

Entertainment

References

  1. ↑ "Propinsi Kalimantan Barat - Dayakologi". Retrieved 2012-09-07.
  2. 1 2 A. J. Gooszen (1999). A Demographic History of the Indonesian Archipelago, 1880–1942. KITLV Press. p. 88. ISBN 90-6718-128-5.
  3. ↑ Tedjasukmana, Jason (June 25, 2010). "Sex Video Scandal and Indonesia's Porn Obsession". TIME magazine. Retrieved 25 June 2010.
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