Malay speaking countries
Malay is an official language in Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Singapore and is spoken in 3 other countries as monther tongue by a part of the population. The Malay language (native name: Bahasa Melayu, بهاس ملايو) has its roots in the Austronesian language family.With 33.12 million native speakers, Malay has the highest prevalence in Indonesia. As a percentage of the total population, the largest share of around 58 percent is in Malaysia. A total of about 57.0 million people worldwide speak Malay as their mother tongue.
| Country | Region | Official language | Distribution | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Indonesia | Southeast Asia | yes | 12.1 % | 33,124,000 |
| Malaysia | Southeast Asia | yes | 58.4 % | 19,607,000 |
| Thailand | Southeast Asia | no | 3.6 % | 2,578,000 |
| Philippines | Southeast Asia | no | 0.7 % | 797,000 |
| Singapore | Southeast Asia | yes | 11.9 % | 649,000 |
| Brunei | Southeast Asia | yes | 45.5 % | 203,000 |
| East Timor | Southeast Asia | no | 2.2 % | 29,000 |
Unless otherwise described in the text, this page is about native speakers — not the total number of speakers. How many people understand or speak Malay as a subsequently learned language is not the subject of this page. Countries where native speakers make up only a few thousand, or even a few hundred people, or countries with a percentage well below 1% are unlikely to be listed here.