Editing Dialect (section)

===Malay===
{{See also|Malay language|Malay dialects and varieties}}
[[Malay language|Malay]] has a long history as a [[lingua franca]] ([[Indonesian language|Indonesian]] and [[Malay language|Malay]]: ''basantara'') in the [[Malay Archipelago]] which currently includes [[Indonesia]], [[Philippines]], [[Malaysia]], [[Brunei Darussalam]], [[Singapore]], [[East Timor]], and the southern part of [[Thailand]]. This geographical variation, which then spread widely even to [[South Africa]], finally led to the formation of a Malay language cluster which spread and had differences due to geographical conditions.<ref name="Ikram">Ikram, A. 2008. [http://melayuonline.com/article/?a=bW1tL3FMZVZBUkU4Ng%3D%3D=&l=bahasa-melayu-penyebar-budaya Bahasa Melayu penyebar budaya. Naskah-naskah sebagai saksi persebaran bahasa]. Jurnal ATL (in Indonesian). '''1'''. Accessed from the ''Malayu Online'' page on 2009-05-06.</ref>

The Malay language is [[pluricentric]] and a [[ISO 639 macrolanguage|macrolanguage]], i.e., several varieties of it are standardized as the national language ({{lang|ms|bahasa kebangsaan}} or {{lang|ms|bahasa nasional}}) of several nation states with various official names: in Malaysia, it is designated as either {{lang|ms|bahasa Malaysia}}<!-- vide Asmah (1992), pp. 403-4 --> ("[[Malaysian Malay|Malaysian]]") or also {{lang|ms|bahasa Melayu}} ("Malay language"); in Singapore and Brunei, it is called {{lang|ms|bahasa Melayu}} ("Malay language"); in Indonesia, an autonomous normative variety called {{lang|id|bahasa Indonesia}} ("[[Indonesian language]]") is designated the {{lang|id|bahasa persatuan/pemersatu}} ("unifying language" or [[lingua franca]]) whereas the term "Malay" ({{lang|id|bahasa Melayu}}) is domestically restricted to vernacular varieties of Malay indigenous to areas of Central to Southern [[Sumatra]] and [[West Kalimantan]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Asmah Haji Omar |title=Malay as a pluricentric language Pluricentric Languages: Differing Norms in Different Nations |publisher=Mouton de Gruyte |year=1992 |isbn=3-11-012855-1 |editor-last=Clyne |editor-first=Michael J. |editor-link=Michael Clyne |location=Berlin & New York |pages=403–4 |chapter=Malay as a pluricentric language |author-link=Asmah Haji Omar}}</ref>{{efn|group=lower-roman|Since the standardized varieties of Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore are structurally largely identical and mostly differ in lexicon and to a lesser degree in phonetic details, the umbrella terms "Malay/Indonesian"<ref name=Blust>{{cite book |last=Blust |first=Robert |title=The Austronesian Languages |edition=revised|publisher=Australian National University|year=2013|isbn=978-1-922185-07-5|hdl=1885/10191}}</ref> or "Malay-Indonesian"<ref>{{cite book |last=Tadmor |first=Uri |year=2009 |chapter=Malay-Indonesian |editor=Bernard Comrie |title=The World's Major Languages |edition=2nd |location=London |publisher=Routledge |pages=791–818}}</ref> are often used in the linguistic literature when discussing the structure or history of the language.}}