| Sri Lankan Malay | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in | Sri Lanka, Middle East, Canada, Australia |
| Native speakers | 46,000 (date missing) |
| Language family |
Creole
|
| Official status | |
| Official language in | Sri Lanka (minority language) |
| Regulated by | No official regulation |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | sci |
The Sri Lankan Malay (also known as Sri Lanka Creole Malay and Bahasa Melayu) is an Austronesian language formed through 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 language is exclusively spoken by Sri Lankan Malays, whose ancestry include exiles and labourers brought by the Dutch and British, as well as soldiers in the Dutch garrison. They now constitute 0.3% of the Sri Lankan population, numbering some 46,000.
Sri Lanka Malay survives mostly through oral contact. However, there have been rare instances when it was written in Sinhala or Tamil script. In the 19th century, Sri Lanka Malay was written in the Gundul script, which was based on the Arabic alphabet with similarities to the Jawi script. Although there have been attempts to revive the written form of Sri Lankan Malay, it is presently in decline as many Malay youth are starting to adapt Sinhala and English at home.
Ansaldo, U. 2008 Sri Lanka Malay revisited: Genesis and classification. In A. Dwyer, D. Harrison & D. Rood (eds). A world of many voices: Lessons from documented endangered languages. Typological Studies in Language 78. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 13-42.
Nordhoff, S. 2009. A grammar of Upcountry Sri Lanka Malay. PhD Dissertation University of Amsterdam. Available online at http://www.lotpublications.nl/publish/issues/Nordhoff/index.html
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