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Malay trade and creole languages

Baba Malay
Native to Singapore, Malaysia (Melaka and Penang)
Ethnicity 250,000 (1986)
Native speakers
(12,000 cited 1986–2006)
Malay-based creole
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog baba1267
Peranakan
Baba Indonesian
Region Java
Native speakers
(20,000 cited 1981)
Malay-based creole
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog pera1256
Malaccan Creole Malay
Chitties Creole Malay
Native to Malaysia
Ethnicity 300 (no date)
Native speakers
Malay-based creole
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog mala1482
Sabah Malay
Region Sabah, Sulu Archipelago, Labuan
Native speakers

3 million L2 speakers (2013)
Malay–based pidgin
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog saba1263
Macassar Malay
Region Makassar, South Sulawesi
Native speakers
None
Second language: 1.9 million (2000)
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog maka1305
Balinese Malay
Region Bali
Native speakers
25,000 (2000 census)
Malay-based creole
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog bali1279
Bacanese Malay
Region Bacan, North Maluku
Native speakers
6 (2012)
Brunei Malay-based creole?
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog baca1243
Gorap
Region Morotai Island, central Halmahera
Native speakers
(1,000 cited 1992)
Malay-based creole
  • East Indonesian
    • Gorap
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog gora1261
Kupang Malay
Region Kupang, West Timor
Native speakers
200,000 (1997)
100,000 L2 speakers (no date)
Malay-based creole
  • East Indonesian
    • Kupang Malay
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog kupa1239
Bandanese Malay
Banda Malay
Region Banda Islands
Native speakers
3,700 (2000)
Malay-based creole
  • East Indonesian
    • Bandanese Malay
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog band1353

In addition to its classical and literary form, Malay has various regional dialects established before the rise of the Malaccan Sultanate. Also, Malay spread through interethnic contact and trade across the Malay archipelago as far as the Philippines. That contact resulted in a lingua franca that was called Bazaar Malay or low Malay. It is generally believed that Bazaar Malay was a pidgin, influenced by contact among Malay, Chinese, Portuguese, and Dutch traders.

Besides the general simplification that occurs with pidgins, the Malay lingua franca had several distinctive characteristics. One was that possessives were formed with punya 'its owner'; another was that plural pronouns were formed with orang 'person'. The only Malayic affixes that remained productive were tər- and bər-.

Other features:

For example,

Bazaar Malay is still used to a limited extent in Singapore and Malaysia. The most important consequence, however, has been that pidgin Malay creolised and created several new languages.

Baba Malay or Peranakan Malay, once a diverse group of pidgins, is spoken in Malaysia but is now almost extinct. These are Malay varieties spoken by the Peranakan, descendants of Chinese settlers who have lived in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia since the 15th Century. Baba Malay is close to the trade pidgins which became creolised across the Malay Archipelago, producing the variety of Malay creoles seen today. A kind of Baba Malay, called Peranakan, is spoken among Chinese living in East Java. It is a mixture of Malay or Indonesian with local Javanese (East Javanese dialect) and Chinese elements (particularly Hokkien). This particular variety is found only in East Java, especially in Surabaya and surrounding areas. While other Chinese tend to speak the language varieties of the places in which they live (the Chinese of Central Java speak High or Standard Javanese in daily conversation even among themselves; in West Java, they tend to speak Sundanese), in Surabaya younger ethnic Chinese people tend to speak pure Javanese (Surabaya dialect) and learn Mandarin in courses.


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