Silat Melayu

Silat Melayu (Jawi: سيلت ملايو), literally meaning "Malay silat" is a blanket term for silat styles of the Malay people. The term was originally used in reference to the native silat of Riau, but today it is more commonly used for the systems created in peninsular Southeast Asia, particularly Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Brunei and Vietnam. In modern usage, the term is most often used to differentiate the Malaysian styles from Indonesian pencak silat. English-language writings sometimes mistakenly refer to silat Melayu as bersilat but this is actually a verb form of the noun silat.

The word Melayu meaning Malay is used somewhat differently from country to country. It originally denoted relation to the Melayu Kingdom in Sumatra, before being used in an ethnic sense. In Indonesia, the word is used for the inhabitants of Riau, Medan and Kalimantan. The martial arts practised by these communities were the first to be referred to as Silat Melayu. Other Sumatrans such as the Minangkabau and Bataks are not considered Malay and so the aforementioned umbrella term did not apply. The word Malay in reference to a broader ethnic or racial identity was first introduced and promoted by British colonists to homogenise and unite the diverse indigenous peoples of the Peninsula. In Malaysia today, the term is defined constitututionally for administrative purposes without ethnological or scientific basis. The ethnic Javanese, Bugis and Minang communities of Malaysia are all "Malay" by law. Thus in colloquial Malaysian usage, any style of silat practised in the peninsula may be informally called Silat Melayu although this is technically incorrect. The issue is further complicated by styles which may have originated outside the Malay community before being introduced to the peninsula by Indonesian settlers, such as Seni Gayong. For simplicity this article will deal with the history and present state of silat in the Malay Peninsula, regardless of any particular style's community of origin.

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