Social varieties of Malay
Bahasa diraja (Royal Malay) is spoken by and to the nine sultans of Malaysia (previously Malaya), pictured above in 1957.
Social dialects are speech varieties that have evolved according to the social background of speakers, while registers are determined by social setting or function. Malay is characterized by both social dialects and registers. Contemporary Malay has only two major social dialects, but retains several special registers, including Royal Malay used for formal occasions and within royal families, and other specialized vocabularies for a variety of occupations, ranging from the archaic lexicon of shamans to that of new information technology workers.
- Information in the full article includes
- Social dialects of Malay
- Registers of Malay