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Leydekker's Malay translation of the Book of Judges in the Jawi script (1733). This era 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 script became prominent with the spread of Islam, supplanting the earlier writing systems. The Malays held the script in high esteem, believing it was a gateway to understanding Islam and its Holy Book, the Quran. The use of Jawi script was a key factor driving the emergence of Malay as the lingua franca of the region. [19]
The most significant indication of Old Malay features is found in verbal affixes used in the inscription, e.g. bar-, di-, and dipar-, which correspond to ber-, di-, and diper-, respectively, in modern Malay and Indonesian. Old Malay words and their modern Malay and Indonesian counterparts are listed below, each followed by its English gloss:
The Malay alphabet has a phonemic orthography; words are spelled the way they are pronounced, with a notable defectiveness: /ə/ and /e/ are both written as E/e.The names of the letters, however, differ between Indonesia and rest of the Malay-speaking countries; while Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore follow the letter names of the English alphabet, Indonesia largely follows the letter names of ...
It is the oldest surviving specimen of the Malay language, in a form known as Old Malay. [2] It is a small stone of 45 cm × 80 cm (18 in × 31 in). This inscription is dated 1 May 683 CE. This inscription was written in Pallava script. [3] [4] [5]
The Rencong script (Dutch: Rèntjong-schrift) is another well-known naming system. "Rencong" is thought to be derived from the Old Malay word mèncong, which means oblique or italics. [8] [9] It could also be derived from the word runcing ('sharp'), as this script family was originally written with a sharp knife tip. [10]
The fact that the language in the inscription shares some basic grammar and vocabulary with Malay [1] has led some scholars to argue that the inscription contains the oldest specimen of Malay words in the form of Old Malay, [8] [9] [10] older by three centuries than the earliest Srivijayan inscriptions from southeastern Sumatra. [1]
Malaysian literature is typically written in any of the country's four main languages: Malay, English, Chinese and Tamil. It portrays various aspects of Malaysian life and comprises an important part of the culture of Malaysia. The earliest works of Malaysian literature were transmitted orally in the absence of writing scripts.