Debates on immigrants to this land called Malaysia are still raging on with the latest DAP anger towards one of the Malay dailies for calling non-Malays immigrants. I want to have my say as well on this subject even though it will only be limited to the cyberspace.
What is actually the origin of this race called Malays or more correctly “Melayu”? I myself am an offspring of a Bugis father and a Patani mother and I am being called a Malay man. I want to put forward this hypothesis or if at the end of my argument it is convincing enough, maybe it will become a theory. Professor Khoo Kay Khim may perhaps land his expertise on history to validate my accidental finding.
I was in a car on my way to a dinner with two friends who were both happened to be of Javanese descent. One hailed from Olak Lempit and that makes him a Jawa Banting and the other from Sungai Besar that qualifies him as a Jawa Sabak Bernam. Here we were in Pattaya calling ourselves Malays and Muslims and were heading for a Secret Recipe outlet for some halal food.
The Jawa Sabak Bernam joked about how Melayu and Jawa got into a quarrel, a tale told frequently amongst the Javanese community in Malaysia. The story was about a bunch of Melayu and Jawa boys sitting in a clearing just beside some bushes. Out of nowhere a pig jolted in front of them and ran across the clearing, apparently an escapee from a farm perhaps and was scared of something. The Jawa boys spotted it first and in unison shouted the words “Babi Melayu, Babi Melayu, Babi Melayu!”. On hearing this scuffle broke out between the Jawa and Melayu boys. The pig’s commotion was met met with a spontaneous remark from the Jawa boys and hence in their mother tongues. What they meant was “a pig running” or literally “babi lari”. In Javanese, the word “melayu” means “lari” in Malay or simply run in English!
Could this be the origin of the term Melayu to refer to those descendants from lands and islands around the Malay archipelagos that landed in the Malay Peninsula escaping from various kinds of persecutions and natural disasters like volcano’s eruption and tsunami? Perhaps the words “orang melayu” were referring to “orang lari” or in modern Malay “orang pelarian” or “refugees” from the islands of Sumatra, Jawa, Sulawesi and so on and so forth?
Before this enlightening event, I was wondering as to the origin of tge word “melayu”. If we consider the root word of “melayu” as “layu” (wither in English), then “melayu” means to “wither” which does not make sense. Or is it referring to an ethnic group that easily succumbs to onslaught of various ideologies? Very unlikely and therefore the hypothesis about “Melayu” as “Pendatang” or “Refugees” make more sense!
Very interesting indeed! I hope those ultra Malay NGOs that make so much noise can instead do some serious research to debunk my hypothesis. If I am a Bugis-Patani descent and am proud of it but not to the point that I wage war at others simply because my descendents are malays/refugee! I am Muslim first and a Malay second and hence my behaviour is dictated by my belief.
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Interesting ! In siamese (not thai) spoken by the malay village folks in Kedah,Perlis and part of Kelantan, malay simply means 'mari la sini, ie. calling the yunan folks to migrate ! Futhermore Ma-la-ka means, mari lah niaga and Ma-ni-la is, mari lah !
kitab bahrul mazi... belajar dulu baru adik tulis supaya tulisan lebih kuat dgn nas dan fakta
you must have not come across dr mahathir's argument that the malays are the first race to create a government here in Malaya.Therefore the legit race or the native is the Malays.
--the malay dilemma
Melayu ke tak melayu, ianya tak naik kan martabat aku dalam masyarakat.Bangsa adalah penyakit yang berkudis hingga jadi kematu.
Cukup dengan ugama ku yang cukup dengan kesederhanaan dan jauhi lah aku dari seorang yang kuat ugama dan kuat berbangsa.
AWANGKASSIM
The emphasis on Malay came with UMNO. I don't see anything written about ketuanan melayu hundreds of years ago. At that time there was only, kerajaan or kesultanan melaka, Pahang, Johor etc. and these states sometimes are at war with each other. So the 'ketuanan Melayu' rhetoric is a fiction designed by UMNO to rally the malays under them. UMNO is not really about the malays, it's about the rich and the high class ( bangsawan)malays. Think about it, why would the name UMNO be used? An english acronym n how many peasant malays in the fifties can read and speak english? Most probably the rich and the bangsawan are the only ones! So if UMNO is truly a peasant malay concern they will definitely not use UMNO ( malay fighters using english name)! Remember that they are fighting the british but the front line malay ultra party has and proudly use an english name! Now that's silly! In most probability is that the rich and bangsawan malay choose UMNO so that the British can remember it easily and never mistook it for the other true malay independence movement. The british then will recognised that UMNO is actually their puppet and the British would never negotiate independence with other people. Now that is more logical and it really does make sense. All these 'ketuanan Melayu' rhetoric is just a magic trick to con the peasant malay into submission. Nothing more and nothing less!
This is quite an old tale for me. The Javanese word for lari is melayu or belayu. Parameswara ran away from Java, so they called his descsndants by that name.
blong
bapak aku ceriter asal usul gelar "melayu" nih masa aku umur 10 tahun (that 20+ years ago) lagi
tiap kali orang bawak keluar hipo melayu=wither; aku mesti bawak keluar teori bapak aku; pastu diorang gelak ramai2
binawe betul..!!
wikipedia search tells you as follows:- (by Joshua)
Origin of the word Malay
According to the History of Jambi, the word Melayu or Malayu originated from a river with name Sungai Melayu near to Sungai Batang Hari of today's Muara Jambi, Jambi province of Sumatra, Indonesia. The founder of Malacca Parameswara was a prince of Palembang which was once owned by a nation called Malayu back in the 7th century. Yi Jing (635-713) clearly recorded in his journal book a nation of name 'Ma-La-Yu' existed. According to archeological research of Jambi, large numbers of ancient artifacts and ancient architectures of Melayu have been found with photos evidence. In ancient Tamil India, Malaya means 'Mount West'.
The word "Malay" was adopted into English via the Dutch word "Malayo", which ultimately originates from the Malay word "Melayu". According to one popular theory, the word Melayu means "migrating" or "fleeing", which might refer to the high mobility of these people across the region.
In his 1775 doctoral dissertation titled De generi humani varietate nativa (On the Natural Varieties of Mankind), anthropologist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach outlined four main human races by skin color, namely Caucasian (white), Ethiopian (black), American (red), and Mongolian (yellow).
By 1795, Blumenbach added another race called Malay which he considered to be a subcategory of the Mongolian race. The Malay race were those of a "brown color, from a clear magohany to the darkest clove or chestnut brown."
You have not heard the Indian version yet. The word Melayu (from which the name "Malaya" originated)is actually "Malai-Oor" in Tamil which means "Land (Oor)of Mountains (Malai)". Similarly, the names Kuala Lumpur originated from "Kolomp-Oor" as Singapore originated from "Singap-Oor". Ask any professor who is well versed in the Tamil / Sanskrit Language and he'll be able to tell you more.
"babi melayu" does not necessarily translate to "babi lari"...it can also mean "babi melintas" for example without altering the context of the story...
If this is so, then then make the word "melayu" could also mean people who melintas, as in travellers and adventurers instead of people who lari, as in refugees or disaster victims. Anyway , the point is, I think that maybe the word melayu was originally applied to a certain type of people who were actively in motion, but i dont think that this motion translate exactly or even specifically as running....
Walau apa pun saya anggap org Melayu sebagai satu bangsa yg bodoh. Mungkin org Melayu telah mencapai zaman gemilang mereka dengan Kerajaan Melaka abad ke 15 tetapi sejak itu mereka tidak berkembang hinggalah sekarang.
Teori saya ialah ini adalah disebabkan oleh taksub mereka kepada raja-raja mereka atau amalan sistem feudal. Raja2 mereka pula mengeksploitasikan mereka, memperhambakan mereka untuk kesenangan mereka sendiri. Tidak seperti raja Meiji di Jepun, Raja Mongkut di Thailand dan juga raja-raja di England yang membawa pembaharuan kepada sistem politik, sosial dan ekonomi rakyat mereka.
Apakah kemajuan org Melayu sejak zaman Melaka hingga merdeka dlm tahun 1957? Hampir tiada.
UMNO terus mengeksploitasikan mentaliti feudal org2 Melayu dan mereka bersekongkol dng raja2 Melayu terus memperhambakan org2 Melayu: Itu sebabnya saya berpendapat org Melayu ini satu bangsa yg bodoh. Lihat sahaja apa terjadi dng bahasa mereka, kedudukan ekonomi mereka dan kedudukan politik mereka!
Itu sebabnya org Cina tidak mahu menghantar anak2 mereka ke sekolah kebangsan (sekolah melayu) dan memandang rendah terhadap org melayu. Kalau di UK, USA atau Australia mereka sedia menghantar anak2 mereka ke sekolah tempatan tetapi di Malaysia mereka mahukan sekolah sendiri beraliran bahasa Cina.
orang Melayu juga tidak maju disebabkan oleh mereka menganut Islam separuh tiang.
TRIVIA TIME!!!!!
There is a river in St Petersburg, Russia called Malaya Neva, or the River Malaya. and when asked to the beautiful russki babe whom i have the opportunity to befriend with, she told me literally it means small river. .. hummph ego deflated.
And in Filipino, Malaya means Freedom.
so there...
Rudy
a staroba
TAMBAH LAGI SKETTT..
The Filipinos too had considered to adopt the name Malaysia as their country, as Phillipines was named after the Spaniard King Philip. But, hey, we beat them to it and the rest as they as is history.
Rudy
bloody-enjoyed-my-history-lessons-at-star
apa yang lebih penting dari bangsa ialah agama.
agama yang tidak membezakan bangsa, warna kulit, bahasa, dan budaya ialah agama Islam.
jadilah orang Islam dan hidup cara Islam lagi elok.
Sebutan dari jawa mbalayu, bukan melayu
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