what is your comment about this topic

my opinion is that city life is uptodate, fastmoving, and polluted environment. While countryside is a kinda of slow moving, not uptodate and healthy living.

Actually I would say that since I'm born in KL... lived in KL but now in PJ... I would die of boredom if I was to live in the small towns or kampungs now... doesn't matter if the food is better and lifestyle is healthier and less pollusion... doesn't really matter to me... home sweet home is in the city!!!! Besides... in the city you get better facilities and education opportunities... and slightly higher pay...

i am livin in a small town..even tho quite near KL but then,life here is really in slow pace...i cant even get things tat i wan here..made me hav to go KL all the time to shoppin...if i hav the chance,i will surly persuade my parents to move out from here..

In this thread I will be posting facts and information about malay people.

Malays (Dutch, Malayo, ultimately from Malay: Melayu) are a diverse group of people living in the Malay archipelago and Malay peninsula in South East Asia.

They constitute the dominant race which live in Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, the Philippines and East Timor, which together with Singapore make up what is called the Malay archipelago.

The Malays are traditionally classified as a member of the Mongoloid race, along with other Asiatic peoples, including Chinese, Mongols, Japanese, Koreans, Thais, Vietnamese and Burmese.

Other groups classified as Malays which live outside what is called the Malay archipelago include the Cham who live in Cambodia and Vietnam and the Utsuls who live on the island of Hainan. Descendants of the Malays could be found today in Sri Lanka, South Africa (the "Cape Malays") and Madagascar. In the latter, they are known as the Merina and one of the dominant ethnic groups in that country.

Surinam, on the north-eastern coast of South America, has a large population of ethnic Javanese descendants of fairly recent immigrant workers.

The Merina



The Merina is the largest ethnic group in Madagascar. Boasting a population of 3 million, which equals to about one-quarter of the country's population, they speak a Malayo-Polynesian tongue and are concentrated in the central highlands.



Their ancestors migrated from Indonesia during the pre-historic times. As a conservative tribe, the Merina had little intermarriage with the people of African descent, owing to the fact that they are highly particular about racial purity. Today, the Indonesian features of the Merina are still quite visible .

Like most tribes, the Merina practice a syncretism of Christianity and Animism.

In the late 18th century Merina rulers began to assert political domination over much of the island. In 1895-96 the French abolished the Merina monarchy by force.

The Malayo-Polynesian (MP) languages are divided into two major subgroups, the Western MP and the Central-Eastern MP.

The Malayo-Polynesian languages tend to use reduplication (repetition of all or part of a word) to express the plural, and like other Austronesian languages have a low entropy; that is, a text is quite repetitive in terms of the frequency of sounds. The majority also lack consonant clusters (e.g., [str] or [mpt] in English). Most also have only a small set of spoken vowels, five being a common number.


Western

Western Malayo-Polynesian has about 300 million speakers and includes Indonesian, Malay, and Javanese, Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilokano, Hiligaynon, Bikol, Kapampangan, and Waray-Waray, Buginese, Malagasy, Chamorro and many others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malay_people

OK so what would you like us to discuss here ??

Add your own comments... provide facts yourself about the language, the people etc I think its interesting that Malagasy is in the Western Malayo-Polynesian group of languages which belongs to several filipino languages I got a lot more information to post. Its more of a informative thread....

ic.... I dont know many malay people - but the majority I met are very hard working people who understand every singlt language like Malay, Philli, Canto, Mando....

i learn from alot (and my some of my friends are)of malaysian people... but im so stupid i forget where they come from.. but they are mostly chinese malaysian not malaysian only.
is that the sort of thing you want to ask people? cause im confused.

Well Malay is a different ethnic group as opposed to those who are born in malaysia and chinese
malaysia is consists of 65% Malays, 20% Chinese, 10% Indians and 5% of other races. I see this thread as a more informative thread that looks at how far the malays influence as spread as well their language for example, people may comment and provide facts and information.

I dunno but we call all people from malayasia - Malai Yan <translate to Malay Person>

yeah but not everyone from malaysia is malay~ there is quite a bit of chinese population there

Would tehy be "Wha Kui" then .. actually any1 who know canto transalate "wah kui" ??

I believe it is "Wah Kiu" and it means overseas chinese.



No No No, I am a malaysian born chinese. I am not "malai yan". Usually this refers to the indigenious (bumiputra) who are majority Muslim (Moslem). We are "Ma Lai Sai Nga" (馬來西亞) Yan which means Malaysian. Or 馬來西亞唐人 - "Ma Lai Sai Nga Tong Yan = Malaysian Chinese. We do not like to be called Ma Lai Yan 馬來人

Ah Ic thanks for clearing that up for me Dor - I dont meet a lot of malaysian people only my mums friend... or workers for my uncles take out business!!!

So you are chinese born Malaysian ?? 馬來西亞人

Dor is malaysian chinese thats different a different ethnic group from malay

People like Lindz, Mel and me and many others are malaysian born Chinese.

As for my case, my grandparents were from China. They migrated to Malaya (name at that time - early 20th century) and my parents were born here in Malaysia, and they are Malaysian Citizen. So automatially, I have the following status:

Nationality: Malaysian
Race: Chinese

No worries missy, I dont mind clearing the air about this.

So dor do you speak mando, canto, malay & english?

For your info, Mandarin is a Language like English and Malaysian Language whereas Cantonese is a dialect together with Hokkein, Teochew and others..

I understand all of the above like Hokkein (my grandparents from Fujian Province, China) and Teochew (95% of my neighbours speak this in my hometown, Teochew is from Chaoshan region of Guangdong province). Majority of the people from Penang speaks Hokkein.

I learnt Canto from errr.... hmm tvb series. I am serious, my family dont speak Canto and I have staying in Kuala Lumpur long enough for me to understand Canto plus me being a fan of TVB series.

My Mandarin is quite limited, I understand, can speak (not prefect, "contaminated" by some Canto pronounciation), CANNOT write, can read a lil bit as I recognised some of the words. I learn this in school. Those who attend Chinese Schools will be able to understand, read and write better than me. I attended national school where the medium of teaching is in Malaysian Language together with English.

Most Malaysian can speak more than 1 language. So dont be suprised when you come to Malaysia or when you meet some Malaysian anywhere in the world, they can mix all the 3-4 languages/dialects in one sentence.

hehe you something you would be surprised to know how many people do actually learn their canto from TVB series

My friend did she understands a lot and her speaking isnt that bad either... I think canto can be quite easy to pick up once you know the basics

Malay Domain

Malay Archipelago

Generally, the name "Malay" is used to describe all the numerous related groups inhabiting the Malay Archipelago, and which are not of older aboriginal stock. These include the Acehnese, Minangs, Bataks and Mandailings who live in Sumatra ; Javanese and Sundanese in Java ; Banjars, Ibans, Kadazans and Melanaus in Borneo ; Bugis and Torajans in Sulawesi ; the various dominant ethnic groups in the Philippines such as the Tagalogs, Ilocanos and Ifugao of Luzon island, the Visayans of the central Philippines, the Maguindanao, Tausug and Bajau of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipaelago ; and the people of East Timor (again, excluding those of older Papuan stock).

Specifically, this name is also the proper name of the subgroup which is native to the eastern part of Sumatra but migrated to the Malay Peninsula and the Riau Archipelago over the past thousand years or so. Sometimes, but very rarely, this subgroup is called "Riau Malays" to distinguish it as a specific group.

Other groups classified as Malays which live outside what is called the Malay archipelago include the Cham who live in Cambodia and Vietnam and the Utsuls who live on the island of Hainan. Descendants of the Malays could be found today in Sri Lanka, South Africa (the "Cape Malays") and Madagascar. In the latter, they are known as the Merina and one of the dominant ethnic groups in that country.

Surinam, on the north-eastern coast of South America, has a large population of ethnic Javanese descendants of fairly recent immigrant workers.


Languages

The languages spoken by Malays are classified as members of the Malayo-Polynesian family of languages, which is now known as Austronesian. This large family of languages includes all the native languages spoken by Malays across the Malay Archipielago, including Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Malaysia, all of the native languages of the Philippines, Tetum (East Timorese), and the Malagasy language of Madagascar. Also included as far-flung members of this large family of languages on the Polynesian branch are the languages spoken by Polynesians, such as Samoan, Hawaiian, Rapanui and Maori in New Zealand.
Georgia and Armenia, both demographic extensions of Europe in Southwest Asia).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malay_people#Languages

Again, I would like to say that "I am NOT a Malay!"
We're Malaysian born Chinese...we are Malaysians or just Chinese...
Calling us Malay is like calling us something we're not
Malay's like....Malay...we're Chineseeeeeee

And yep, M'sians are multi-lingual like that, lol
We know English, Malay Language, tons of Chinese dialects, Indian Language and bits of every other special ones

We mix different language in our daily conversation, so yeah, you can call it as broken English or Manglish It's like a natural thing to talk like that...but we can be very proper if we want to as well...so it's not that bad unless you're fobby like that, hehehe...

I appreciate being brought up as a M'sian because it has sooooo many cultures mixed all-in-one...plus, it's not like we dont have the influence of Western cultures too, so we pretty much have everything

LOL I already explained that Malay is a different ethnic group

LOL so there should be more people teaching us Malay in the learn Malaysian thread

That's true but we have more on culture and learning environment. The people in city expose to more things and they are more open-minded whereas those people in the countryside will be more conservative on accepting things. Besides, people in city will be used to the things that happen around them and people in countryside really CARE of all the things happened in their place and gossips a story for a long time is their habit.

In the city, the environment push you to learn more things and you have the chance to learn a lot of things and knowledge whereas in the countryside people usually quite relax and the environment keep asking you to rest.

It depends on the person what kind of life they need!

For job seekers and those who pursue a chance to upgrade themselves, capital is the place to turn to, but there is a price to pay, by having a higher living cost, facing congestion on the road, smelling the smokes from the exhaust system and a hot place. Whereas in smaller town, it's like a simpler life, with a lower living cost and a healthier environment with lesser pollution, but the technology there is slower than capital, so it will take some time before the technology penetrate the small town.

im malaysian born malay haha~ i dunno what i look like. i dont really look like a malay.. nor chinese or indian.. im a mix of everything (weeiird, cuz im 100% malay) lmao XD nowadays you can hardly tell which person is malay/chinese/indian/any other races... we are developing our own 'malaysian' look haha

I like Malaysia. I enjoy the city more than the small kampungs though. I prefer permanently living in Singapore than Malaysia though - man people spit anywhere and don't give a sh*t about what they do. But in the city, the more upmarket shopping centres and stuff are enjoyable.

Okay, since we're in the Malay ethnic group thread, I'm going on-topic for a little.

In the city, many Malays love shopping for bargains, especially in Sogo, one of the shopping centres in Kuala Lumpur. This is especially true on the Sogo Members Day; there'll be many Malays rushing into Sogo just to get what they need at a bargain. And that shopping centre is also situated in a Malay area - Jalan Tunku (or is it Tuanku?) Abdul Rahman.

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I'm a Malaysian Chinese, btw. I'm looking at things from another Malaysian's perspective.

Anyway, jackkool, thanks for the information about this topic! With sources, should I add.

I dated a Singaporean a couple years back and she took me home to meet the rest of her family. most of her family still lived in Malaysia so we drove across the straits and went to Malaysia for a few days. We stayed by her grandfather in Kota Tinggi and hung out in Johor Bahru. We also visited her aunt in Mersing for a few days but alas didn't make it to KL. Funny thing: even tho I am a big city person i preferred the smaller towns.

Largest ethnic minority in Malaysia are Chinese and Indian.
Actually Chinese made up the largest ethnic minority group in every Asian countries.

There are 40 million Chinese in overseas alone.
That's enough population to fill to form medium sized country.