马来语(Malay language)

马来半岛、苏门达腊、婆罗洲、马来西亚和印度尼西亚其他地方以澳斯特罗尼西亚诸语言（Austronesian languages）为母语的人可能超过三千万人。马来语风行於麻六甲海峡（为印度和中国之间的贸易要道）两岸，所以使用马来语的族群在欧洲人侵入该区域之前投入国际商业达百年之久，因而马来语也变成印尼港口的通用语，并引起皮钦语（pidgin）和克里奥尔语（creole）的变异，成为所谓的「集市马来话」（Bazaar Malay, Melayu Pasar）。印尼於20世纪，订定统一的马来语成为全国性的语言－－印尼语，用拉丁字母书写，现在全国约有70%的人口使用并听得懂印尼语。另一个相似的标准马来语，由马来西亚和汶莱的国语所组成。为人所知的最古老马来语文本为第七世纪从苏门达腊南部发现的一个印度语系的手写铭文。（参阅Indic writing systems）；而後马来文学传统中断直到14世纪马来半岛伊斯兰化之後才开始。

English version：

Malay language

Austronesian language with perhaps over 30 million first-language speakers in the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo, and other parts of Indonesia and Malaysia. Because Malay was spoken on both sides of the Strait of Malacca, a crucial trade route between India and China, Malay-speaking groups were drawn into international commerce centuries before European penetration of the region, and Malay became a lingua franca in Indonesian ports, giving rise to a range of pidgins and creoles known as Bazaar Malay (Melayu Pasar). In 20th-century Indonesia, a standardized form of Malay was adopted as the national language, Indonesian; written in Latin letters, it is now spoken or understood by about 70% of the population. Similar standardizations of Malay comprise the national languages of Malaysia and Brunei. The oldest known Malay texts are 7th-century inscriptions from southern Sumatra in an Indic script (see Indic writing system); a continuous Malay literary tradition did not begin until the Islamicization of the Malay Peninsula in the 14th century.