Topic started by I (@ h66-59-174-253.gtconnect.net) on Wed Jan 16 16:09:36 .
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The two languages under examination: Tamil and Malay, span a region which encompasses almost the two extremes of the Bay of Bengal. To the west, we find the Coromandel Coast (in modern terms, mainly Tamil Nadu and the Jaffna peninsula, and to the east, the Malay peninsula, including Singapore. This topographical delineation is necessary simply for the reason that, had it not been for the hectic seafaring movement across the bay, helped by the monsoons, the influence of one language over the other or of one people over another would not have necessarily arisen. For the sake of precise definitions, let us pursue the delineation a little further. Tamil is the earliest written literary language of the Dravidian linguistic family and is spoken by well over sixty million, principally in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka and by minorities in Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, Kenya, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia, the West Indies, and other states of the Indian federation, not to mention several isolated pockets in the oceans, such as, Mauritius and the Fiji islands. Malay (Bahasa Malaysia) and a form of creolised Malay, called Bazaar Melayu, and their close cousin: Indonesian, is spoken by nearly all the inhabitants of Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, which gives this/these language(s) a grand total of just under two hundred million. Besides, a Malay pidgin may also be spoken in Madagascar, South Africa, Sri Lanka and in the Thai provinces of the Isthmus of Kra. Tamil as the donor language in our study is to be understood as that, or those - if we are to accept the variations in the language inherent in registers and idiolects belonging to different classes and castes crossing the Bay of Bengal - spoken and used by the literate population of Tamils since before the composition of the Tolkappiyam, say, around a few centuries B.C. For the purposes of our study, however, the Malay under examination has to be limited to about twenty million users of it in Malaysia and Singapore. Just a word now about the origin of the Malay people, this being necessitated by the study of influences to follow [Wignesan 1988: Vol.I, 30-44; 543ff.].
The Negritos, the original inhabitants of peninsular Malaysia, now to be found either settled or roving in the northern mountainous forests of the country, practised a Middle Stone Age culture; with time, they were driven inland by waves of Proto-Malays of the New Stone Age descending from the Yünnan Plateau in China, between 2.500 and 1.500 B.C. The latter used the peninsula as a stepping stone towards migration into the Malay Archipelago, Melanesia, Micronesia and/or Polynesia. The Dyaks and Bidayu of Sarawak are, it is believed, direct descendants of these migrating Proto-Malays. It is to the Semang and Jakun of the Malay Peninsula, however, that the term Proto-Malay has come to be applied. The Proto-Malay tribes have undergone over the centuries rather severe or profound acculturation from the passing and/or settling of successive waves of foreign invaders and traders. As such, the presentday Malay whose Proto-Malay ancestors ceased their migrations around 300 B.C. have had their original strains and features largely tempered by a maelstrom of forces, from the Mongoloid Deutero-Malays (new immigrants from Yünnan) and the Dravidian conqueror-traders of yore and their accompanying savant priests and scholars, followed by the Muhammadan Gujeratis and Bengalis of Arabo-Persian descent to the Khmer, Thai and southern Chinese [Ryan 1976:4-10]. The Portuguese (1511-1641), Dutch (1642-1795) and English (1795-1957/63) colonial settlers, too, contributed to the stock that now distinctly takes its ethnic impetus from the days of the conversion of the Hindu founder-father of the Malacca Sultanate, Parameswara, to Islam in 1398, thus commencing the brief heyday of Malaysian-Malay supremacy in Southeast Asia [Gullick 1965:7-9].
Despite the great many studies made of the Malay past, we may never be certain of the continuity of forces shaping and giving a sense of direction to the inhabitants of the Malay world (Coedès 1964:35-72). The doubt that such a work as George W.Spencers (TPE:TCCSLS 1983) casts on the existence of the Sri Vijayan empire must of needs make us want a reassessment of the Malay past. But then most authorities, in particular, Richard Winstedt (AHCML 1969 and TMCH 1961), seem to be agreed upon one premise, and that is, on the one hand, of the predominating influence of things Indian on Malay cultural life and literary forms and thematics, whereas attributing to China, despite its avowed will to Middle Kingdom isolation, the responsibility for having shaped the structure of Malay political apparatuses and institutions. So, now it would seem disputable that the Tamil-inspired Sri Vijayan Empire (1000-1300) was the first political power to give form to the Malaysian ethos, nor would it be of much import to rally in support of our argument of Indian influence in the Malay world the evidence of flourishing trade promoted by the kingdoms of Langkasuka, Fu-nan or Chen-la, all centred in and around the Isthmus of Kra.
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