[An-lang] Malay in broader terms

[David Gil]

In response to Chris:

It's instructive to contrast the very different usages of the term Malay
(actually Melayu) in Indonesia and Malaysia.

In Indonesia, the term refers to a particular ethnic group found
primarily in Sumatra and neighboring peninsular Malaysia; in this usage,
Bugis, Javanese, Sundanese, Lampungese, Minangkabau, Acehnese, and so on
and so forth are most emphatically not Malay.  On the fringes, some
indeterminacy can be found with respect to the application of the term
to speakers of Malayic languages such as Palembang, Seraway, Bengkulu
and others: some would characterize them as Malay while others would
not.  The Indonesian use of the term thus correponds more or less to
that of most western ethnographers and anthropologists, with the
possible exception of various small non-Muslim Malayic-speaking "Orang
Asli" populations, who might be considered Malay by ethnographers, but
aren't considered Malay by most Indonesians, on religious grounds.

in contrast, in Malaysia, the term Malay has a much broader usage, which
seems to correspond roughly to Muslim Austronesian.  (So this would
include also those Pilipinos who are Muslim.)  To a certain extent, this
usage reflects current realities within Malaysia, where Javanese,
Minangkabau and other Muslim Austronesian migrants assimilate rapidly
into the dominant Malay cultural mold.  However, it is totally
inappropriate in the Indonesian context, where Malay (as opposed to
Indonesian) language and Malay culture are recognized as being just one
albeit major element in a multi-lingual and multi-cultural mosaic.

 From the above, it should be obvious that for linguistic and
ethnographic discourse, the more limited Indonesian usage is more
precise and hence more appropriate than the broader Malaysian one.  And
it would also seem to be preferable on ethical grounds.  Maybe Pilipinos
don't mind being called Malays, but many Indonesians of other
ethnicities would find this very strange.  Using Malay as a cover terms
for Minangkabau, Javanese, Bugis and so forth is a bit like using German
as a cover term for Swedish, Dutch, English and so on.

Cheers,

David


>Hello,
>
>In the Philippine context, Malay is also used to refer to Filipinos as well.  I
>learned a few years ago that it was anthropologist H. Otley Beyer who began all
>this since Filipinos did not fit under the now-debunked three-race model of
>Negroid, Caucasoid, and Mongoloid.
>
>Since then, I've been telling others not to use Malay to refer to Filipinos but
>instead to use Austronesian.
>
>Personally, I find Malay to be ambiguous for two reasons: (1) It refers
>primarily to someone from Malaysia and (2) It gives the false impression that
>Filipinos came from Malaysia (when, in facts, signs point that they came from
>up north in Southern China, via Taiwan).
>
>But there's also the term "Malayo-Polynesian" - what should I make of this?
>
>So my question is, do you guys in the field share my opinion on this?
>
>Thanks,
>
>--Chris Sundita
>http://salitablog.blogspot.com
>
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--
David Gil

Department of Linguistics
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany

Telephone: 49-341-3550321
Fax: 49-341-3550119
Email: gil at eva.mpg.de
Webpage:  http://www.eva.mpg.de/~gil/



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