Malay world

The Malay world or Malay realm (Malay: Dunia Melayu or Alam Melayu, Jawi: دنيا ملايو or عالم ملايو) is a concept or an expression that has been utilised by different authors and groups over time to denote several different notions, derived from varied interpretations of Malayness, either as a racial category, as a linguistic group, or as a political-cultural group. The use of the term 'Malay' in much of the conceptualisation is largely based on the prevalent Malay cultural influence, manifested in particular through the spread of Malay language in Southeast Asia as observed by different colonial powers during the Age of Discovery.

The concept in its broadest territorial stretch may apply to a region synonymous with Austronesia, homeland to the Austronesian peoples, that extends from Easter Island in the east to Madagascar in the west. Such description has its origin in the introduction of the term Malay race in the late 18th century that has been popularised by the orientalists to describe the Austronesian peoples. In a narrower sense, the Malay world has been used as a Sprachraum, referring to the Malay-speaking countries and territories of Southeast Asia, where different standards of Malay are the national languages, or a variety of it is an important minority language. The term in this sense encompasses Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Southern Thailand, and is sometimes used interchangeably with the concepts of 'Malay archipelago' and 'Nusantara'.

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