Malay, spoken all over Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei, is one of the biggest languages in the world. That’s largely because Indonesian is considered a variety of Malay—one standardized for use in Indonesia. Malaysia uses a slightly different standardized version of the language. But the world of Malay is a bit more complicated than that. Numerous minority languages grouped as “Malayic” abound throughout the region, sometimes exhibiting considerable differences from Indonesian or Standard Malay. One of those minority Malayic languages is Kedah Malay.
Many minority Malayic languages are spoken by large numbers of people: Kedah Malay, for instance, boasts around 2.6 million native speakers. While this is magnitudes fewer than Indonesian or Standard Malay, it’s huge for a minority language. Unfortunately, Kedah Malay’s status as a minority language closely related to Standard Malay can pose challenges for its flourishment into the future, with speakers in Malaysia obligatorily learning Standard Malay in school. We at TranslationServices.com want to help support Kedah Malay, so we’ve set up our own Kedah Malay translation team—check it out now!
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Kedah Malay: Diving into Malay’s “Northern Dialect”
Kedah Malay—or Kedahan, as it’s sometimes known—is primarily centered in Kedah, a northern state of Peninsular Malaysia, as well as the neighboring states of Penang, Perlis, and Perak. North of the border in Thailand, the language is spoken in parts of Trang, Satun, Ranong, Krabi, and Bangkok. Some Kedah Malay speakers are even found as far afield as Kawthaung District in Myanmar and Langkat and Aceh in Indonesia. With such a wide geographical distribution, it’s no surprise that Kedah Malay comprises numerous dialects—Kedah Persisiran, or Littoral Kedah, is the prestige dialect, but there’s also Kedah Utara (Northern Kedah), Perlis-Langkawi, Penang, and Northern Perak, as well as the Satun and Trang dialects, which are heavily influenced by Thai.
Grammatically, Kedah Malay is closely related to Malay, originating from the same Austronesian language family. The dialects spoken in Thailand are distinct because Thai, a Tai-Kadai language, is completely unrelated to Malay—but even the dialects in Malaysia harbor significant differences from Standard Malay. Even pronouns are completely different: Kedah Malay depa (“they”) hardly resembles Standard Malay mereka. Kedah Malay also does away with some of Standard Malay’s politeness distinctions in pronouns. This means that a Standard Malay translator can’t deliver a high-quality Kedah Malay translation—so if you’re looking for accuracy, work with our Kedah Malay translation specialists.
The experience to provide all types of Kedah Malay translation services
The world of translation is huge and diverse. We know that our clients come from all sorts of domains—academia, business, literature, and beyond—and they all have different needs. Some clients may be looking for Kedah Malay as used in a specific part of Malaysia, whereas others are targeted a Kedah Malay-speaking audience in Thailand. Some of our clients want to translate English texts into Kedah Malay, while others are looking for translation of Kedah Malay into English. Our Kedah Malay translators hail from all over northern Malaysia, southern Thailand, and beyond, representing different dialects and specialties—so all you have to do is let us know what you’re looking for.
Anyone looking for specialized translation services—say, for an academic research survey in a particular discipline, engaging ad copy in a given industry, or flowing prose in a specific literary genre—can also find what they’re looking for with us. If your document contains esoteric vocabulary you’re concerned may be difficult to translate, just notify us—we’ll match you with an expert on our Kedah Malay translation team who knows your field.
Get started with Kedah Malay translation services today when you reach out with the files and details of your project in a message!