The tag alias #78650 malaysian_text -> malay_text is pending approval.

Reason: "Malaysian" is not a language or a text [1], it is a nationality which is well known for having a diverse mix of races and languages. Malay literacy amongst malaysians with internet access is not as universal as English literacy [2]. Many Malaysian shops and restaurants offer service in at least 4 languages (English, Malay, Chinese, Tamil). The definition of malaysian in this context would be "belonging to or relating to Malaysia or its people", but if this was to be applied to language tags, then the tag 'malaysian_text' is akin to saying 'american_text' or 'canadian_text', which e6 does not do. Malay is also the official administrative language of Singapore [3], meaning the moniker or 'malaysian_text' is not fully accurate.

The official language of the country of Malaysia and the racially Malay people is called 'Malay' [4], not Malaysian. Thus, the tag should be malay_text.

As a side note, english with malay affectations (such as 'gostan', 'yum cha', or 'lah') would be manglish_text or singlish_text, an argument that should be reserved for some other time.

[1]:https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/malaysian
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Malaysia#Languages
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Singapore#Malay
[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malay_language

spicysharkderg said:
The tag alias #78650 malaysian_text -> malay_text is pending approval.

Relevant: topic #57475

IMO, it should either be malaysian_text or indonesian_text, with malay_text (currently 1 post) be purged since I don't see a need to make an umbrella tag.
My explanations on the linked thread above and reiterated below.

Reason: "Malaysian" is not a language or a text [1], it is a nationality which is well known for having a diverse mix of races and languages...

The official language of the country of Malaysia and the racially Malay people is called 'Malay' [4], not Malaysian. Thus, the tag should be malay_text.

[1]:https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/malaysian
[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malay_language

Not true, there is something called Malaysian Malay (also known as "Malaysian" or locally as "Bahasa Malaysia") which is the standardised form of the Malay language spoken in Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei.
There is also another widely spoken form of Malay known as Indonesian Malay ("Bahasa Indonesia") which is the standardised form spoken in Indonesia.

The two are generally mutually intelligible, but there are exists some distinct spelling and grammatical differences that non-native speakers may not easily identify.

Malay literacy amongst malaysians with internet access is not as universal as English literacy [2]. Many Malaysian shops and restaurants offer service in at least 4 languages (English, Malay, Chinese, Tamil). The definition of malaysian in this context would be "belonging to or relating to Malaysia or its people", but if this was to be applied to language tags, then the tag 'malaysian_text' is akin to saying 'american_text' or 'canadian_text', which e6 does not do. Malay is also the official administrative language of Singapore [3], meaning the moniker or 'malaysian_text' is not fully accurate.

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Malaysia#Languages
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Singapore#Malay

As mentioned earlier, Singapore also uses "Malaysian Malay" as well and there is no such thing as a "Singaporean Malay" language (not to the confused with the people). The country itself also shares a long history with Malaysia and was even part of Malaysia at one point.
It is generally understood amongst Malaysians and Singaporeans alike that something like malaysian_text refers to the "Malaysian Malay" language spoken in both countries (as opposed to "Indonesian Malay") and not the other spoken languages, which would simply be known as English, Chinese, and Tamil.

thegreatwolfgang said:
As mentioned earlier, Singapore also uses "Malaysian Malay"

As you can see in multiple official statements by the government of Singapore , their official language is referred to in English as 'Malay', not 'Malaysian Malay' and especially not 'Malaysian'. The Malaysian Government would also prefer you call it 'malay' if you're going to refer to it in English (otherwise, they'd prefer 'Bahasa Malaysia').

Ignoring government endorsements in favor of practical usage, try and find people refering to the language as 'malaysian' in online spaces like /r/malaysia or the social media platform formally known as twitter.com and note that even if you search for 'writing in malaysian', most returned english results will refer to the language as 'malay'.

From a formal and informal perspective, in English the language is referred to as 'Malay', and you've even called it as such in your own comment. The correct term for text written in Malay is malay_text.

thegreatwolfgang said:
Not true, there is something called Malaysian Malay (also known as "Malaysian" or locally as "Bahasa Malaysia")

The actual source you provided for that statement ("Malay as a pluricentric language" by Asmah Haji Omar) contradicts what you said and even refers to the language as 'Malay' in its title. In the same wikipedia articles you linked, they've even translated 'Bahasa Malaysia' to 'Malay', even though the absolute literal translation would be 'Malaysian language'. They didn't translate it like that, though, because that's not what it's called.

Less relevantly but more interestingly, the BM version of your sources shows how the native population refer to it, specifically, the usage and distinction of the term 'bahasa Melayu' in favor of bahasa Malaysia.

thegreatwolfgang said:
The two are generally mutually intelligible, but there are exists some distinct spelling and grammatical differences that non-native speakers may not easily identify.

The term for these two languages is 'austronesian'. If you wanted to be picky, text which could be either could be tagged as 'austronesian_text'.

thegreatwolfgang said:
There is also another widely spoken form of Malay known as Indonesian Malay

Side note entirely here: Bahasa Indonesia comes from Bahasa Malaysia but that doesn't make it acceptable to refer to it as 'Indonesian Malay' any more than it's acceptable, sensible, or even logical to refer to English as 'American British'.

The first posts tagged with 'malaysian_text' were tagged as such by individuals who did not speak or read malay and so would not have known the correct terminology. After that, the second set of posts to be tagged malaysian_text were originally tagged as malay_text.

On a purely empirical level, I'm a native British English speaker but understand BM, and have been living in and around South East Asia for the past 5 years. I showed your comment to the South East Asian furries to get their opinion and amongst the laughter one of them said "Lets see him skewered alive saying that shit in kelantan". This is not my opinion or an endorsement of violence, and presented merely for the reader to interpret general sentiment that as they wish.

spicysharkderg said:
The term for these two languages is 'austronesian'. If you wanted to be picky, text which could be either could be tagged as 'austronesian_text'.

Not really. Austronesian is the large parent family that includes a lot of languages including Malay, Tagalog, Javanese and so on. Indonesian and Malay are essentially the same language with regional variations that have different names for national reasons, similar to Croatian and Serbian (Serbo-Croatian). The umbrella term for that language is refered to as Malay, and that's due to how historically the Indonesian language even came into prominence. But, I've heard some people use the term "bahasa" (from Bahasa Melayu and Bahasa Indonesia) in order not to favor one region/nationality over the other.

spicysharkderg said:
As you can see in multiple official statements by the government of Singapore , their official language is referred to in English as 'Malay', not 'Malaysian Malay' and especially not 'Malaysian'. The Malaysian Government would also prefer you call it 'malay' if you're going to refer to it in English (otherwise, they'd prefer 'Bahasa Malaysia').

Ignoring government endorsements in favor of practical usage, try and find people refering to the language as 'malaysian' in online spaces like /r/malaysia or the social media platform formally known as twitter.com and note that even if you search for 'writing in malaysian', most returned english results will refer to the language as 'malay'.

From a formal and informal perspective, in English the language is referred to as 'Malay', and you've even called it as such in your own comment. The correct term for text written in Malay is malay_text.

The actual source you provided for that statement ("Malay as a pluricentric language" by Asmah Haji Omar) contradicts what you said and even refers to the language as 'Malay' in its title. In the same wikipedia articles you linked, they've even translated 'Bahasa Malaysia' to 'Malay', even though the absolute literal translation would be 'Malaysian language'. They didn't translate it like that, though, because that's not what it's called.

Less relevantly but more interestingly, the BM version of your sources shows how the native population refer to it, specifically, the usage and distinction of the term 'bahasa Melayu' in favor of bahasa Malaysia.

Colloquially, nobody does that. This is like expecting in official statements that the government of the United States should always refer to the national language as "American English" or expecting random Americans to say that they casually speak in "American English", instead of simply "English".

The fact is that the term Malay is vague as it refers to the language spoken in the region as a whole, disregarding nuanced differences used in the respective countries.
"Malay" is the official language used in Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei while "Indonesian" is the official language used in Indonesia. Both are considered to be standardised varieties of the broader Malay language.

We could simply call the "Malaysian Malay" text tag as malay_text, but as I mentioned above, the term "Malay" could also refer to the Indonesian language as well (which currently exists as indonesian_text).
We could also call it as standard_malay_text if people are too sensitive about referring it as "Malaysian Malay". I have no objections against that, but that would require you to make a different alias request.

The term for these two languages is 'austronesian'. If you wanted to be picky, text which could be either could be tagged as 'austronesian_text'.

Would help zero people. Also, not the first time something like that got suggested.

Side note entirely here: Bahasa Indonesia comes from Bahasa Malaysia but that doesn't make it acceptable to refer to it as 'Indonesian Malay' any more than it's acceptable, sensible, or even logical to refer to English as 'American British'.

The first part regarding Bahasa Indonesia (lit. Indonesian Language) coming from Bahasa Malaysia (lit. Malaysian Language) is not true. It came from Old Malay and the term "Malaysia" mostly refers to the modern nation.
Officially and colloquially, the language is simply known as "Indonesian". However, due to the language's origin and history, it is still considered as a type of "Malay".

The first posts tagged with 'malaysian_text' were tagged as such by individuals who did not speak or read malay and so would not have known the correct terminology. After that, the second set of posts to be tagged malaysian_text were originally tagged as malay_text.

On a purely empirical level, I'm a native British English speaker but understand BM, and have been living in and around South East Asia for the past 5 years. I showed your comment to the South East Asian furries to get their opinion and amongst the laughter one of them said "Lets see him skewered alive saying that shit in kelantan". This is not my opinion or an endorsement of violence, and presented merely for the reader to interpret general sentiment that as they wish.

Not to completely doxx myself, but I'm South East Asian and have known that language for most of my life. Nobody will ever colloquially refer to the language as being "Malaysian Malay" or even "Standard Malay", but for the sake of distinguishing them between "Indonesian Malay" on this site, I don't see why that can't be used.
You can also ask your SEA furry friends if they can tell you the differences & similarities between Standard Malay and Indonesian Malay, and whether or not both languages could be considered as a form of "Malay".

And as a frequent visitor to Kelantan myself (or Kelate if you'd prefer), that joke about being "skewered alive" mostly refers to the fact that (spoken) Kelantanese Malay is so distinct from that of "Standard/Malaysian Malay" that most people from other states in the country would not understand the dialect used, though you could still communicate to them using Standard Malay since that is still taught in schools.

czyszy said:
Not really. Austronesian is the large parent family that includes a lot of languages including Malay, Tagalog, Javanese and so on.

Yeah, reasonably speaking, that's true, hence why i said 'being picky'. It was not a serious suggestion. Were it to be a serious suggestion there would need to be a greater discussion surrounding the seperate historical writing systems, and whether other polynesian languages should be included (at which point maybe the tag would be polynesian_text) all of which is a rabbit hole really not worth going down...

thegreatwolfgang said:
the term "Malay" could also refer to the Indonesian language

No it couldn't, you're thinking of Malayic, not malay. (note that all the dialects of Bahasa malaysia and Bahasa indoensia stem from mostly nuclear malayic)

thegreatwolfgang said:
Colloquially, nobody does that.

Hence why I provided the evidence to show the opposite, showing that colloquial usage heavily favored calling it Malay, not Malaysian. "Malaysian" as a text simply doesn't exist, so having it as a tag is just wrong.

thegreatwolfgang said:
The fact is that the term Malay is vague as it refers to the language spoken in the region as a whole

It's not vauge, and the evidence you present doesn't support that it is. Colloquialy, the vast majority of Indonesians don't say they speak Malay, they say they speak Indonesian. They may say they can also understand Malay, or that the differences are mostly of dialect, but ultimately the primary answer will be Indonesian. And officially, the language spoken in Indonesia is "Bahasa Indonesia", or, in English "Indonesian" (or indo if you're short on time).

I get where you're coming from, but if you're saying that Bahasa Indonesian and Bahasa Malaysian should both be considered 'malay text' because they're similar, then we should apply the same rules to flemmish and dutch, ukranian and russian, or danish and swedish. Also, again, you're thinking of Malayic, not malay. Also, again, malaysian_text is just straight up wrong because such a concept doesn't exist unless you're on about the tell-tale mix of, say, "English, Chinese, and Malay", or "Tamil, Chinese and English", so which tag SHOULD it be instead, given standard_malay_text would exclude important Malay phrases like "Boleh", "Lah" or "gostan" (which DO appear in malay art on e621 but are not 'standard')

thegreatwolfgang said:
However, due to the language's origin and history, it is still considered as a type of "Malay".

Even if this was relevant or true, this isn't an argument against having a malay_text tag, it's an argument for having both a malay_text tag AND a malaysian_text tag (in the same vein as having crylic_text AND ukranian_text). That 'type of malay' would be referred to as malayic_text , not malay_text [Genuinely fascinating research here , pages 414 are where the cool maps start and 428 is the good-enough summary, though not wholely relevant to this particular discussion]

thegreatwolfgang said:
The first part regarding Bahasa Indonesia (lit. Indonesian Language) coming from Bahasa Malaysia (lit. Malaysian Language) is not true. It came from Old Malay...

Please read the sources before you try and present information from them. The link you provided for Old Malay clearly says that Modern Bahasa Indonesia comes from Riau Malay, not Old Malay, which is about 500 years after what is considered 'Old Malay'. ("Jang dinamakan "bahasa Indonesia" jaitoe bahasa Melajoe jang soenggoehpoen pokoknja berasal dari "Melajoe Riau" akan tetapi jang soedah ditambah, dioebah atau dikoerangi menoeroet keperloean zaman dan alam baharoe, hingga bahasa itoe laloe moedah dipakai oleh rakjat di seloeroeh Indonesia"). Even if you didn't read the source, you should be able to figure this out, because Old Malay uses Kawi which isn't even the same writing system when it diverged during the use of Riau Malay, hence why Bahasa Indonesia never used Kawi.

At any rate the language being used on e621 isn't Melajoe Riau or Old Malay, but either modern indonesian or modern malay making this point moot.

thegreatwolfgang said:
Not to completely doxx myself, but I'm South East Asian and have known that language for most of my life. Nobody will ever colloquially refer to the language as being "Malaysian Malay" or even "Standard Malay", but for the sake of distinguishing them between "Indonesian Malay" on this site, I don't see why that can't be used.
You can also ask your SEA furry friends if they can tell you the differences & similarities between Standard Malay and Indonesian Malay, and whether or not both languages could be considered as a form of "Malay".

Of all the SEA furs I asked (including indo) - and without wishing to sound mean - the majority were perplexed by your stance and said it sounded like an american trying to justify their stance using wikipedia. None of them agreed that 'malaysian_text' made sense, and and only one agreed that malay_text COULD be misinterpreted as also being indonesian. Upon reading the sources you presented, though, he changed his mind and said malay_text would be appropriate. Several of them also observed that 1: someone from Kelantan wouldn't make mistakes like this, 2: nobody we know from Kelantan calls themselves a Kelate, and 3: After checking what the term actually means technically, it wouldn't apply to a visitor anyway, as it's for people who are from there, not visiting.

But boleh lah, if you're over here, kita jom pagi FURUM Disember. Can do poll also, see got how many people say Malay or Malaysian speaking ah?

spicysharkderg said:

No it couldn't, you're thinking of Malayic, not malay. (note that all the dialects of Bahasa malaysia and Bahasa indoensia stem from mostly nuclear malayic)

Hence why I provided the evidence to show the opposite, showing that colloquial usage heavily favored calling it Malay, not Malaysian. "Malaysian" as a text simply doesn't exist, so having it as a tag is just wrong.

It's not vauge, and the evidence you present doesn't support that it is. Colloquialy, the vast majority of Indonesians don't say they speak Malay, they say they speak Indonesian. They may say they can also understand Malay, or that the differences are mostly of dialect, but ultimately the primary answer will be Indonesian. And officially, the language spoken in Indonesia is "Bahasa Indonesia", or, in English "Indonesian" (or indo if you're short on time).

I get where you're coming from, but if you're saying that Bahasa Indonesian and Bahasa Malaysian should both be considered 'malay text' because they're similar, then we should apply the same rules to flemmish and dutch, ukranian and russian, or danish and swedish. Also, again, you're thinking of Malayic, not malay. Also, again, malaysian_text is just straight up wrong because such a concept doesn't exist unless you're on about the tell-tale mix of, say, "English, Chinese, and Malay", or "Tamil, Chinese and English", so which tag SHOULD it be instead, given standard_malay_text would exclude important Malay phrases like "Boleh", "Lah" or "gostan" (which DO appear in malay art on e621 but are not 'standard')

Even if this was relevant or true, this isn't an argument against having a malay_text tag, it's an argument for having both a malay_text tag AND a malaysian_text tag (in the same vein as having crylic_text AND ukranian_text). That 'type of malay' would be referred to as malayic_text , not malay_text [Genuinely fascinating research here , pages 414 are where the cool maps start and 428 is the good-enough summary, though not wholely relevant to this particular discussion]

Please read the sources before you try and present information from them. The link you provided for Old Malay clearly says that Modern Bahasa Indonesia comes from Riau Malay, not Old Malay, which is about 500 years after what is considered 'Old Malay'. ("Jang dinamakan "bahasa Indonesia" jaitoe bahasa Melajoe jang soenggoehpoen pokoknja berasal dari "Melajoe Riau" akan tetapi jang soedah ditambah, dioebah atau dikoerangi menoeroet keperloean zaman dan alam baharoe, hingga bahasa itoe laloe moedah dipakai oleh rakjat di seloeroeh Indonesia"). Even if you didn't read the source, you should be able to figure this out, because Old Malay uses Kawi which isn't even the same writing system when it diverged during the use of Riau Malay, hence why Bahasa Indonesia never used Kawi.

At any rate the language being used on e621 isn't Melajoe Riau or Old Malay, but either modern indonesian or modern malay making this point moot.

Yeah, at this point, I can see that you are getting a little too hopped up with the technicalities, so I won't be arguing it any further.

IMO, calling it simply as malay_text is too broad regardless of whether we agree on that point or not. The mod will have to decide on this regardless.
I have already pointed out how Wikipedia even defines the Malay language as encompassing both Standard Malay and Indonesian, and I acknowledge that you don't think it should.
I have also already pointed out how it defines Standard Malay as also being known as "Malaysian" or "Malaysian Malay" as well, thus my justification of keeping it simply as malaysian_text.

Of all the SEA furs I asked (including indo) - and without wishing to sound mean - the majority were perplexed by your stance and said it sounded like an american trying to justify their stance using wikipedia.

Because we often use Wikipedia to define our tag wikis. Granted it is not the most-accurate of sources, but it is the most widely-accessible one.

Several of them also observed that 1: someone from Kelantan wouldn't make mistakes like this, 2: nobody we know from Kelantan calls themselves a Kelate, and 3: After checking what the term actually means technically, it wouldn't apply to a visitor anyway, as it's for people who are from there, not visiting.

Anybody from Kelantan would know what that word exactly means, and I'm not even from Kelantan.
I was referencing Kelate as being the slang term for the state itself, but apparently nobody there got the reference. I'm too much of a Mat Salleh I guess.