Teach Yourself Complete Malay - 2 Audio CDs and Book
Brand New (still shrink wrapped) 2 CDs and Book
*learn how to speak, understand and write Malay
*progress quickly beyond the basics
*explore the language in depth
Summary:
Malay is spoken in Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and parts of Thailand. Teach Yourself Malay is a self-access course for the independent adult learner of Malay as a foreign language. Lively dialogues (recorded by Malay speakers on the accompanying double CD) in authentic Malay introduce the language, which is then explained in simple English, as it is not assumed that the student has learned a foreign language before. Exercises - written, audio, and pictorial - are used to reinforce learning. At the end of the book there are a 'taking it further' section, a key to the exercises and Malay-English and English-Malay vocabulary lists.
GRAMMAR IS CLEARLY EXPLAINED - in simple English BEGINNERS TO INTERMEDIATES - equally suitable for beginners and those needing to brush up their knowledge LEARN THE LANGUAGE YOU NEED - for holidays (guides you through the airport, how to ask for tourist information, buying souvenirs), for business trips (jobs, invitations) LIVELY, AUTHENTIC LANGUAGE - the words and phrases used by Malay-speakers todayEXERCISES TO REINFORCE UNDERSTANDING - written, audio and pictorial exercises add variety and spice to your learning
Table of Contents:
 Introduction and pronunciation
Welcome to Malaysia � greetings/introductions/origins
At the airport � yes/no questions/possession
Getting to know you � personal information/nationalities and languages/basic questions
Working and studying � talking about jobs and studies/ capabilities
Family and home � talking about family members/location/numbers
Tourist information � Asking for information/existence and location/more numbers/telling the time/ days of the week
Invitations � making, accepting and declining invitations/ reasons / months
Asking the way � Asking for and understanding directions/location
Changing money � Higher numbers/ expressing distance, height and weight
Transport � buying tickets/ getting around/time expressions
Checking in � Getting accommodation/asking about services/saying what you usually do
Clothes/Souvenir shopping � Expressing size, colour, and what things are made of
Eating out � How to order food from street vendors and in restaurants
At the supermarket � Shopping for food/understanding a recipe
Hobbies and free time � Expressing likes, dislikes/saying how long you have been doing something/ hobbies and sports
At the doctor�s � Body words/ saying how you feel/ talking about illnesses
A phone call � What to say on the phone/ talking about the weather/ a look at very informal Malay and slang
Taking it further
Index
About the Author(s):
Christopher Byrnes is an experienced author and teacher of various languages, including EFL. Tam Lye Suan is a Straits-born Malay speaker, with 25 years' writing, editorial and translating experience.
About the Language
Malay is an Austronesian language spoken by the Malay people and people of other ethnic groups who reside in the Malay Peninsula, southern Thailand, parts of the Philippines, Singapore, central eastern Sumatra, the Riau Islands and parts of the coast of Borneo.
Malay is an official language of Malaysia, Brunei, and Singapore. In Indonesia and East Timor, the language is formally referred to as Bahasa Indonesia, which literally translates as "Indonesian language." It is also called Bahasa Kebangsaan (National Language) and Bahasa Persatuan/Pemersatu (Unifying Language) in Indonesia. In Malaysia, the language is now officially known as Bahasa Malaysia, ("Malaysian language".) Singapore, Brunei and southern Thailand refer to the language as Bahasa Melayu ("Malay language").
In Malaysia, the term Bahasa Malaysia, which was introduced by the National Language Act of 1967, was in use until the 1990s, when most academics and government officials reverted to "Bahasa Melayu," used in the Malay version of the Federal Constitution. According to Article 152 of the Federal Constitution, Bahasa Melayu is the official language of Malaysia. "Bahasa Kebangsaan" (National Language) was also used at one point during the 1970s.
Indonesia pronounced Malay its official language when it gained independence, calling it Bahasa Indonesia. However, the language had been used as the lingua franca throughout the archipelago since the 15th century. Since 1928, nationalists and young people throughout the Indonesian archipelago have declared it to be Indonesia's only official language, as proclaimed in the Sumpah Pemuda "Youth Vow."
Indonesian and Malay are separated by some centuries of different vocabulary development. Indonesian is distinct by its vocabulary from Malay as spoken in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, where the language is known simply as Bahasa Melayu. Bahasa Melayu is defined as Brunei's official language in the country's 1959 Constitution.
Some Malay dialects, however, show only limited mutual intelligibility with the standard language; for example, Kelantanese pronunciation is difficult even for some Malaysians to understand, while Indonesian has a lot of words unique to it that are unfamiliar to other speakers of Malay who are not from Indonesia.
The language spoken by the Peranakan (Straits Chinese, a hybrid of Chinese settlers from the Ming Dynasty and local Malays) is a unique patois of Malay and the Chinese Hokkien dialect, which is mostly spoken in the former Straits Settlements of Penang and Malacca.
The history of the Malay language can be divided into four periods: Old Malay, the Transitional Period, the Malacca Period, and Late Modern Malay.
Old Malay is unintelligible to a speaker of modern Malay. It was heavily influenced by Sanskrit, the lingua franca of Hinduism and Buddhism. The earliest known inscription in the Old Malay language was found in Sumatra, written in Pallava Script and dates back to 7th century - known as Kedukan Bukit Inscription, it was discovered by the Dutchman M. Batenburg on 29 November, 1920, at Kedukan Bukit, South Sumatra, on the banks of the River Tatang, a tributary of the River Musi. It is a small stone of 45 by 80 cm.
The Malay language came into widespread use as the trade language of the Sultanate of Malacca (1402 � 1511). During this period, the Malay language developed rapidly from influence of Islamic literature. The development changed the nature of the language with massive infusion of Arabic, Persian and later Hindi vocabularies. Under the Sultanate of Malacca the language evolved into a form recognizable to speakers of modern Malay.
Malay is a member of the Austronesian family of languages which includes languages from Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean, with a smaller number in continental Asia. Malagasy, a geographic outlier spoken in Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, is also a member of this linguistic family.
Malay belongs to the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the family, which includes the Languages of the Philippines and Malagasy, which is further subdivided into Outer Hesperonesian languages and Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian of which Malay is a member. Malay's closest relatives therefore include Javanese, Acehnese, Chamorro and Palauan.
Although each language of the family is mutually unintelligible, their similarities are rather striking. Many roots have come virtually unchanged from their common Austronesian ancestor. There are many cognates found in the languages' words for kinship, health, body parts and common animals. Numbers, especially, show remarkable similarities.
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