Language code: ms

Technical information about ISO 639 language code ms

The table below provides technical details for the Malay language, designated by the ms code from the ISO 639-1 standard.

Code

ms

Name

Official

Malay

Native

Bahasa Melayu

Family
Austronesian
Text direction

Left-to-Right

Plural rules

More info

Language varieties
Standard MalayKedah–Perlis MalayKelantan–Pattani MalayTerengganu MalayPahang MalayPerak MalayNegeri Sembilan MalaySarawak MalayBrunei Malay
Related languages
IndonesianMinangkabauBanjarIbanCham
Key facts
Written in both Latin (Rumi) and Arabic-derived Jawi scriptsHas no grammatical gender and verbs do not conjugate for person or numberContains significant loanwords from Sanskrit, Arabic, Portuguese, Dutch and EnglishThe oldest known Malay inscription dates to the 7th-century Kedukan Bukit stoneExtensively uses reduplication to form plurals, intensifiers and new words.
Sample phrase

Hai, apa khabar?

Character encodings

UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32

Supported in Localizely

Malay belongs to the Austronesian language family. It is an official language in Brunei and Malaysia, and one of the official languages in Singapore. Malay is primarily written using the Latin script, known as the Malay alphabet or Rumi. Additionally, the Arabic script (Jawi) is also used, particularly in religious contexts in Malaysia and Brunei. It is estimated that there are more than 26 million speakers worldwide.

Language presence globally

Speakers

430K

*The graph shows a rough estimate of Malay speakers in countries where it is an official or minority language.

Related locale codes

ms-BN Malay (Brunei Darussalam)

ms-MY Malay (Malaysia)

ms-SG Malay (Singapore)

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