Malay trade and creole languages

In addition to its classical and modern literary form, Malay had various regional dialects established after the rise of the Srivijaya empire in Sumatra, Indonesia. Also, Malay spread through interethnic contact and trade across the south East Asia Archipelago as far as the Philippines. That contact resulted in a lingua franca ("trade language") that was called Bazaar Malay or low Malay and in Malay Melayu Pasar. It is generally believed that Bazaar Malay was a pidgin, influenced by contact among Malay, Hokkien, Portuguese, and Dutch traders.

Besides the general simplification that occurs with pidgins, the Malay lingua franca had several distinctive characteristics. One was that possessives were formed with punya 'its owner, to have'; another was that plural pronouns were formed with orang 'person'. The only Malayic affixes that remained productive were tər- and bər-.

Other common features:

• Ada became a progressive particle.
• Reduced forms of ini 'this' and itu 'that' (>ni, tu) before a noun.
• The verb pərgi 'go' was reduced, and became a preposition 'towards'.
• Causative constructions were formed with kasi or bəri 'to give' or bikin or buat 'to make'.
• A single preposition, often sama, was used for multiple functions, including direct and indirect object.^[1]

For example,^[2]

• Rumahku 'my house' becomes Aku punya rumah (lit. 'I have that house')
• Aku pukul dia 'I hit him' becomes Aku kasi pukul dia (lit. 'I give a hit to him')
• Ardi dipukul oleh Dani 'Ardi is hit by Dani' becomes Ardi kena pukul dek Dani

Bazaar Malay is used in a limited extent in Singapore and Malaysia, mostly among the older generation or people with no working knowledge of English.^[3] The most important reason that contributed to the decline of Bazaar Malay is that pidgin Malay has creolised and created several new languages.^[4] Another reason is due to language shift in both formal and informal contexts, Bazaar Malay in Singapore is gradually being replaced by English, with English and its creole Singlish being the lingua franca among the younger generations.^[3]