Ethnic Malays

Malays (Malay: Melayu Jawi: ملايو) are an ethnic group of Austronesian people predominantly inhabiting the Malay Peninsula including the coastal Indonesian including eastern Sumatra, southernmost parts of Thailand, south coast Burma and island of Singapore, coastal Borneo, including Brunei, West Kalimantan, coastal Sarawak and Sabah, and the smaller islands which lie between these locations - collectively known as the Alam Melayu. These locations today are part of the modern nations of Malaysia, Western Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei, Southern Burma and Southern Thailand.

There is considerable genetic, linguistic, cultural, and social diversity among the many Malay subgroups, mainly due to hundreds of years of immigration and assimilation of various regional ethnicities and tribes within Maritime Southeast Asia. Historically, the ethnic Malays population is descended primarily from the earlier Malayic-speaking tribes that settled in the region, who founded several ancient maritime trading states and kingdoms, notably Brunei, Old Kedah, Langkasuka, Gangga Negara, Old Kelantan, Negara Sri Dharmaraja, Malayu and Srivijaya, the Cham settlers and Mon-Khmer peoples. Beginning in the 15th century, the common definitive markers of a Malay identity - Islam, Malay language and traditions - are thought to have been promulgated during the golden age of Malay sultanates in Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Borneo, resulting the ethnogenesis of Malay people as an ethnoreligious group in the region. As these sultanates began spreading their influences through trade and dawah, many, particularly from various tribal communities became subject of Islamisation and Malayisation, including the Bataks, Dayaks, Orang Aslis, Orang lauts and other groups. Today, some Malays have recent forbears from other parts Maritime Southeast Asia, termed as "anak dagang" ("traders") and predominantly composed of Javanese, Bugis, Minangkabau and Acehnese peoples, while some are also descended from more recent immigrants from other countries.

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