My name is Abdul Musawwir Marian (Mus Marian), and I'm an Australian with Malay heritage on my mother's side. Learning Malay through her, and then Indonesian through school, my entire life has been a journey of uncovering more and more insights into my "mother's tongue". I have also studied Arabic and Turkish, and this was where I first noticed the huge impact liturgical and aristocratic language (Like Arabic and Persian) can have on languages, especially Malay. This was the starting point of my essay, but I turned to Sanskrit as the further I dug, the more I found traces of the language at every level. I am a language lover with a passion for learning, and therefore this essay comes from a point of enjoyment and drawing comparisons between languages that I found enjoying. The later points of this essay will try to draw everything nicely together in a cohesive format. In my university years, I majored in Arabic studies and even went on an international study tour. This essay also serves as an entry point for me; digging and researching deeper into linguistic topics that I enjoy, and potentially helping to define areas of specialization I would like to investigate in the coming years.
This essay will highlight the historic impact and influence of Sanskrit on the Malay Language. Surprisingly, Sanskrit is the number 1 donor of loanwords into Malay, superseding even Arabic. This essay will look at the interesting ways Sanskrit has embedded itself into the Malay language; citing examples from Proper Nouns, Cultural and Religious ideas, as well as day-to-day words. After that the essay will examine the long-lasting impact Sanskrit has had on Malay language, and the layers of culture that still bear the mark of historic interaction. The essay will also take some time to "zoom out", and look at SE Asia as a whole, and see the impact Indianization had on all nations in the area; not just Malay. To then counter this, the essay will briefly highlight the Austronesian family of which Malay is a part of. And this will leave some room for discussion on what a language is, and how we decide which family or groups languages fit into. Lastly, for the language lovers, the essay discusses what exactly the point of all these historic connections are; how examining a language more deeply can then make it more interesting to the learner and provide a variety of pathways for new learners to discover a new language.