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Malaccan Malay

Malaccan Malay (, ; ; Jawi: بهاس ملايو ملاک) is a Malayic language spoken in the Malaysian states of Malacca and less prominently in western Selangor. In Malacca, it is mainly spoken in Malacca City and in the areas surrounding it, while in western Selangor, it is spoken from south of the Selangor River until the district of Kuala Langat, although migration of people of different linguistic backgrounds into the area have made it less prevalent in Selangor.

In between these two areas where Malaccan Malay is spoken, a vastly different dialect of Malay is spoken, Negeri Sembilan Malay. Spoken mainly in the state of Negeri Sembilan and also in some parts of Malacca (mainly in Alor Gajah) and Selangor, this dialect arose as a result of significant Minangkabau migration into these areas starting as early as the 14th century. The emergence of this dialect is believed to be what split the Malaccan Malay dialect into two separate unconnected dialect areas instead of forming one continuous dialect chain.

Phonology

Consonants

The consonant inventory of Malaccan Malay consists of 19 consonants.

Notes:

  • Prevocalic and intervocalic in Standard Malay correspond to in Malaccan Malay.
  • The sequence of Standard Malay corresponds to in Malaccan Malay, so 'to chase' and 'hungry' would be pronounced as and in Malaccan Malay instead of as and as in Standard Malay. According to Asmah (2015), this was caused by the elision of the and the subsequent diphthongization of the vowel to . Another analysis posits that the instead was simply replaced by the consonant .
  • In western Selangor, prevocalic and postvocalic are elided, causing 'black' and 'seven' to be pronounced as and .

Vowels

The vowel inventory and distribution of Malaccan Malay is largely identical to that of schwa-variety Standard Malay pronunciation. This means word-final ⟨a⟩ as in 'scar' would be pronounced as schwa and closed syllable-final ⟨i⟩ and ⟨u⟩ as in 'weird' and 'to enter' would be pronounced as and as in schwa-variety speech.

The only instance in which Malaccan Malay's vowel distribution differs from that of schwa-variety speech is with the diphthong which, in Malaccan Malay, also occurs in places that would have in Standard Malay (e.g. Malaccan Malay 'snake' ≙ Standard Malay ).

Vocabulary

Malaccan Malay contains a number of unique words not found or typically used in Standard Malay. Below is a non-exhaustive list of such words along with their Standard Malay equivalents:

References

Citations

Bibliography