Malay race
The concept of a Malay race was originally proposed by the German physician Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–1840), and classified as a brown race.[1][2] Malay is a loose term used in the late 19th century and early 20th century to describe the Austronesian peoples.[3][4]
Since Blumenbach, many anthropologists have rejected his theory of
.History
The linguistic connections between Madagascar, Polynesia and Southeast Asia were recognized early in the colonial era by European authors, particularly the remarkable similarities between Malagasy, Malay, and Polynesian numerals.[5] The first formal publications on these relationships was in 1708 by the Dutch Orientalist Adriaan Reland, who recognized a "common language" from Madagascar to western Polynesia; although the Dutch explorer Cornelis de Houtman also realized the linguistic links between Madagascar and the Malay Archipelago prior to Reland in 1603.[6]
The Spanish
In his 1775 doctoral
Malay variety. Tawny-coloured; hair black, soft, curly, thick and plentiful; head moderately narrowed; forehead slightly swelling; nose full, rather wide, as it were diffuse, end thick; mouth large, upper jaw somewhat prominent with parts of the face when seen in profile, sufficiently prominent and distinct from each other. This last variety includes the islanders of the Pacific Ocean, together with the inhabitants of the Mariannas, the Philippine, the Molucca and the Sunda Islands, and of the Malayan peninsula. I wish to call it the Malay, because the majority of the men of this variety, especially those who inhabit the Indian islands close to the Malacca peninsula, as well as the Sandwich, the Society, and the Friendly Islanders, and also the Malambi of Madagascar down to the inhabitants of Easter Island, use the Malay idiom.
— Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, The anthropological treatises of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, translated by Thomas Bendyshe, 1865.[10]
By the 19th century, however, scientific racism was favoring a classification of Austronesians as being a subset of the "Mongolian" race, as well as polygenism. The Australo-Melanesian populations of Southeast Asia and Melanesia (whom Blumenbach initially classified as a "subrace" of the "Malay" race) were also now being treated as a separate "Ethiopian" race by authors like Georges Cuvier, Conrad Malte-Brun, Julien-Joseph Virey, and René Lesson.[3]
The British naturalist
In 1899, the Austrian linguist and ethnologist
Colonial influences
The view of Malays held by Stamford Raffles had a significant influence on English-speakers, lasting to the present day. He is probably the most important voice who promoted the idea of a ‘Malay’ race or nation, not limited to the Malay ethnic group, but embracing the people of a large yet unspecified part of the South East Asian archipelago. Raffles formed a vision of Malays as a language-based 'nation', in line with the views of the English Romantic movement at the time, and in 1809 sent a literary essay on the topic to the Asiatic Society. After he mounted an expedition to the former Minangkabau seat of royalty in the Pagaruyung, he declared it was ‘the source of that power, the origin of that nation, so extensively scattered over the Eastern Archipelago’.[14] In his later writings he moved the Malays from a nation to a race.[15]
Usage
Brunei
In
.Indonesia
In
The concept of the Malay race as in Malaysia and to some degree, the Philippines, also influenced and might be shared by some Indonesians in the spirit of inclusivity and solidarity, commonly coined as puak Melayu or rumpun Melayu. However, the idea and the degree of 'Malayness' also varies in Indonesia, from covering the vast area of Austronesian people to confining it only within the Jambi area where the name 'Malayu' was first recorded.[18] Today, the common identity that binds Malay people together is their language (with variants of Indonesian language dialects that exist among them), their culture norms, and for some Islam.[19]
Malaysia
In Malaysia, the early colonial censuses listed separate
After a period of generations of being classified in these groups, individual identities formed around the concept of bangsa Melayu (Malay race). For younger generations of people, they saw it as providing unity and solidarity against colonial powers, and non-Malay immigrants. The Malaysian nation was later formed with the bangsa Melayu having the central and defining position within the country.[15]
Philippines
In the
Although Beyer's theory is now completely rejected by modern anthropologists, the misconception remains and most Filipinos still conflate
Singapore
United States
In the
Many anti-miscegenation laws were gradually repealed after the Second World War, starting with California in 1948. In 1967, all remaining bans against interracial marriage were judged to be
See also
- East Indies
- Greater Indonesia
- Malay Archipelago
- Indonesian Archipelago
- Malay Peninsula
- Malay world
- Native Indonesians
- Malayness
- Maphilindo
- Nusantara
- Sinodonty and Sundadonty
References
- ^ University of Pennsylvania
- ^ "Johann Frederich Blumenbach". Retrieved 18 February 2018.
- ^ ISBN 9781921536007.
- Austronesians.
- ^ ISBN 9781136749841. Archivedfrom the original on 26 July 2020. Retrieved 4 June 2020.
- ISBN 9781922185075.
- ^ JSTOR 3623036.
- ^ PMID 18156242.
- ^ a b "Pseudo-theory on origins of the 'Malay race'". Aliran. 19 January 2014. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-09-10. Retrieved 2006-09-10.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - Dictionary). Oxford University Press. p. 22000.
- ISBN 9781920942854. Archivedfrom the original on 2 April 2020. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
- ISBN 9789971696429. Archived(PDF) from the original on 30 December 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
- ^ Lady Sophia Raffles (1830). Memoir of the Life and Public Services of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles. John Murray. p. 360.
- ^ S2CID 38870744.
- ISBN 978-0-86091-546-1. Retrieved 15 April 2022.
- JSTOR 3023866. Retrieved 15 June 2021.
- ^ "Redefinisi Melayu: Upaya Menjembatani Perbedaan Kemelayuan Dua Bangsa Serumpun". Archived from the original on 2017-08-23. Retrieved 2012-01-26.
- ^ Melayu Online (2010-08-07). "Melayu Online.com's Theoretical Framework". Melayu Online. Archived from the original on 2012-10-21. Retrieved 2012-02-04.
- S2CID 29838345.
- ISBN 1902937201.
- ^ Acabado, Stephen; Martin, Marlon; Lauer, Adam J. (2014). "Rethinking history, conserving heritage: archaeology and community engagement in Ifugao, Philippines" (PDF). The SAA Archaeological Record: 13–17.
- ^ Lasco, Gideon (28 December 2017). "Waves of migration". Philippine Daily Inquirer. Retrieved 19 June 2019.
- ^ Palatino, Mong (27 February 2013). "Are Filipinos Malays?". The Diplomat. Retrieved 19 June 2019.
- ISBN 9789971695552.
- ^ Pascoe, Peggy, "Miscegenation Law, Court Cases, and Ideologies of "Race" in Twentieth Century America, The Journal of American History, Vol. 83, June 1996, p. 49
- ISBN 978-0-226-53663-7
- ISBN 978-1-4129-0556-5
Further reading
- Roque, Ricardo (15 October 2018). "The colonial ethnological line: Timor and the racial geography of the Malay Archipelago". Journal of Southeast Asian Studies. 49 (3): 387–409. S2CID 165228012.