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Malay Indonesians (Malay and Indonesian: Melayu Indonesia; Jawi script: ملايو ايندونيسيا) are ethnic Malays living throughout Indonesia as one of the indigenous peoples of the island nation. Indonesia has the second largest ethnic Malay population after Malaysia. Historically, Indonesian, which is the national language of Indonesia, was derived from the Malay language spoken in Riau archipelago, a province in eastern Sumatra. There were a number of Malay kingdoms in Indonesia that covered the islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan, such as Srivijaya, Melayu Kingdom, Sultanate of Deli, Sultanate of Siak Sri Indrapura, Riau-Lingga Sultanate, Sultanate of Bulungan, Pontianak Sultanate, and the Sultanate of Sambas.
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Sumatra
There have been various Malay kingdoms there were based on the island of Sumatra: from the Melayu Kingdom, Srivijaya, Sultanate of Deli, Sultanate of Siak Sri Indrapura and Riau-Lingga Sultanate.
Kalimantan
In the Pontianak incidents during the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies, the Japanese massacred most of the Malay elite and beheaded all of the Malay Sultans in Kalimantan.
During the Fall of Suharto, there was a resurgence in Malay nationalism and identity in Kalimantan and ethnic Malays and Dayaks in Sambas massacred Madurese during the Sambas riots.
Language
Sumatra is the homeland of the Malay languages, which today spans to all corners of Insular Southeast Asia. The Indonesian language which is the country's official language and lingua franca was based on Riau-Lingga (or Johor-Riau) Malay. The Malay language has a long history, which has a literary record as far back as 7th century AD. The famous early Malay inscriptions are Kedukan Bukit Inscription, it was discovered by the Dutchman M. Batenburg on 29 November 1920, at Kedukan Bukit, South Sumatra, on the banks of the River Tatang, a tributary of the River Musi. It is a small stone of 45 by 80 cm. It is written in Old Malay, a possible ancestor of today's Malay language and it's variants. Most Malay languages and dialects spoken in Indonesia are mutually unintelligible to Standard Indonesian. The most widely spoken are Palembang Malay (3.2 million), Jambi Malay (1 million), Bengkulu Malay (1.6 million) and Banjarese (4 million) (although not considered to be a dialect of Malay by its speakers, it's minor dialect is typically called Bukit Malay). Besides the proper Malay languages, there are several languages closely related to Malay such as Minangkabau, Kerinci, Kubu and others. These languages are closely related to Malay but do not considered their language to be Malay by its speakers. There are many Malay-based creoles spoken in the country especially in eastern Indonesia due to contacts from western part of Indonesia and during colonial rule where Malay replaced Dutch as a lingua franca. The most well known Malay creoles in Indonesia are Ambonese Malay, Betawi, Manado Malay and Papuan Malay.