Malay race

The concept of a Malay race was originally proposed by the German scientist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–1840), and classified as a brown race.Malay is a loose term used in the late 19th century and early 20th century to describe the Austronesian peoples / categorize Austronesian speakers into a race.

Since Blumenbach, many anthropologists have rejected his theory of five races, citing the enormous complexity of classifying races. The concept of a "Malay race" differs with that of the ethnic Malays centered on Peninsular Malaysia and parts of the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Borneo.

The earliest records of the word Melayu or Malayu came from a Chinese record that reported a kingdom named Malayu had sent the envoy to the Chinese court for the first time in 645 CE. It was recorded in the book Tang Huiyao collected by Wang Pu during the Song dynasty. Another Chinese source mentioned the kingdom of Malayu. Two books were written by a buddhist monk I-tsing or I Ching (義淨; pinyin Yì Jìng) (634–713), in his journey from China to India in 671 wherein he reported:

"When the northeastern wind blows, we sail leaving Canton heading south.... After sailing for twenty days, we reach the land of Srivijaya. We stay there for about six months to learn Sabdavidya. The king was very kind to us. He helped send us to the land of Malayu, where we stayed for two months. Later we continued our journey to Kedah .... Sailing northward from Kedah, we reached the island of naked people (Nicobar) .... From here we sailed westward for half a month and finally reached Tamralipti (Indian east coast)"

Another source dated from a later period mentioned the name Bhumi Malayu, written in the Padang Roco Inscription dated 1286 CE in Dharmasraya, and later in 1347 CE, Adityawarman edited his own inscription inscribed in the Amoghapasa statue, declaring himself the ruler of Malayupura. The Majapahit record, Nagarakretagama dated 1365 CE, mentioned the lands of Melayu dominated by Majapahit" From these records the name Malayu seems to be identified with the area around the Batanghari river valley from estuarine to hinterland in present-day Jambi and parts of West Sumatra province. The people inhabiting the Eastern coast of Sumatra and parts of the Malay peninsula identified themselves as Malay with a common language called the Malay language. After the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century, the Europeans identified the native people living on both coasts of the Malacca strait as Malay people. This term extended to neighboring peoples with similar traits.

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