Malay trade and creole languages

Baba Malay

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.

Example (Spoken in Surabaya):

Example (Spoken in Melaka-Singapore):

Betawi Malay

Betawi Malay, also known as Jakarta or Java Malay, is a creolised-Malay which is spoken in Jakarta (the modern name for Betawi) and its surroundings. Betawian or Omong Betawi is based on Bazaar Malay (Melayu Pasar) but influenced by various languages such as Javanese, Sundanese (the area is surrounded by Sundanese speaking area), Chinese (especially Hokkien), Portuguese, Dutch, Balinese and others. Betawian creole began to be used after 1750 in Batavia, and replaced Portuguese creole as the lingua franca.

Betawian Malay was also influenced by Chinese-style Malay spoken by the Chinese settlers who had come earlier.

It has now become a very popular language particularly amongst the younger generations in Indonesia due largely to its use on television (such as sinetron or sitcom).

Betawi Malay was the ancestor of Cocos Malay.

Malaccan Creole Malay

Spoken since the 16th century by descendents of Tamil merchants of the Malacca Straits. It may be historically related to Sri Lanka Creole Malay.

Sri Lanka Malay

The Sri Lankan Creole Malay language is a unique mixture of the Sinhalese language and the Tamil language with Malay. Sri Lanka Malay (SLM) is a restructured vernacular of Malay base spoken by at least five different communities in Sri Lanka which has evolved to be significantly divergent from other varieties of Malay due to intimate contact with the dominant languages of Sinhala and Tamil. The Malays in Sri Lanka, whose ancestry include labourers brought by the Dutch and British, as well as soldiers in the Dutch garrison, now constitute 0.3% of the population, numbering some 46,000. It is spoken exclusively by the Malay ethnic minority in Sri Lanka.

Broome Pearling Lugger Pidgin

A pidgin used in the pearl industry in West Australia.

Sabah Malay

A pidginised variant of standard Malay, Sabah Malay is a local trade language. There are a large native speakers in urban areas, mainly children who have a second native language. There are also some speakers in the southernmost parts of the Philippines, particularly in the Sulu Archipelago as a trade language.

Macassar Malay

Macassar Malay is not a creole, but a mixed Malay–Macassarese language, with Malay lexicon, Macassarese inflections, and mixed Malay/Macassarese syntax.

Balinese Malay

Balinese Malay is a trade language of the island.

East Indonesian Malay

The creoles of eastern Indonesia appear to have formed as Malays and Javanese, using lingua franca Malay, established their monopoly on the spice trade before the European colonial era. They have a number of features in common:

For example,

Bacan (next) is perhaps the most archaic, and appears to be closely related to Brunei Malay (which is not a creole).

Bacanese Malay

Spoken in Bacan Island and its surroundings, North Maluku.

Manado Malay

Manado Malay is another creole which is the lingua franca in Manado and Minahasa, North Sulawesi. It is based on Ternatean Malay and highly influenced by Ternatean, Dutch, Minahasa languages and some Portuguese words.

Examples :

Sentences :

Gorap

Gorap is lexically 85% Malay, but has many Ternate words as well, and word order differs from both Austronesian and Halmahera languages. Children no longer acquire the language.

Ternate / North Moluccan Malay

This creole resembles Manado Malay, but with different accents and vocabulary. A large percentage of its vocabulary is borrowed from Ternatean, such as: ngana : you (sg) ngoni : you (pl) bifi  : ant ciri  : to fall Spoken in Ternate, Tidore and Halmahera islands, North Maluku for intergroup communications, and in the Sula Islands.

Example :

Kupang Malay

Spoken in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara, on the west end of Timor Island. It is based on archaic Malay which mixed mostly with Dutch, Portuguese and local languages. Similar to Ambonese Malay with several differences in vocabularies and accent. Its grammatical system resembles that of other East Indonesian Malay Creoles.

Examples :

Ambonese Malay

Malay was first brought to Ambon by traders from Western Indonesia, then developed into a creole when the Dutch Empire colonised the Molluccas. Ambonese Malay was the first example of the transliteration of Malay into Roman script, and used as a tool of the missionaries in Eastern Indonesia.

Bandanese Malay

A distinct variant of Moluccan Malay. Spoken in Banda Islands, Maluku and it has specific accents. Different from Ambonese Malay and for Ambonese, Bandanese Malay is widely perceived as sounding funny due to its unique features.

Example :

Papuan/Irian Malay

Originally a contact language among tribes in Indonesian New Guinea (Papua and West Papua) for trading and daily communication, now a growing number of native speakers. Papuan and Irian declared Malay as their language since 1926, before the Sumpah Pemuda declaration. Nowadays, they tend to speak more formal Indonesian. This variant is also understood in Vanimo, Papua New Guinea near Indonesian border.

Example :