ABSTRACT
Malay is the official language of Malaysia, where it is spoken by at least twenty million people. Malay belongs to a language family known as Austronesian, which comprises some 1200 different languages, almost all of which are spoken on islands in the Pacific. The earliest Malay writing, beginning in the 7th century, used various Southeast Asian scripts that derive from the writing systems of India. After Islam came to the region in the 14th century, Malay began to be written in the Arabic alphabet. The phrasebook-like nature of the Malay word-list in the notebook may indicate that its owner needed to learn some of the language in order to communicate with the merchants, or even that he was planning to travel to Malaysia himself. The Baghdadi Jews in India typically spoke Judeo-Arabic or Judeo-Persian amongst themselves, but those living in Penang and Singapore acquired at least basic familiarity with Malay, which was the language used for business.
