Among Malays in Malaysia, they identified themselves into 3 groups, i.e. anak jati (the real ethnic Malay), anak dagang (other ethnic groups like Javanese, Buginese, Minangkabau, etc that assimilated into Malay) and peranakan/jawi pekan (those of Arab or Indian ancestry). Some mixed mamaks can be considered under the 3rd group where you can find a lot of them in Penang/Kedah. Most of anak jatis concentrate along the northern states while the anak dagangs along western coastal states like Selangor, Negeri Sembilan and Johor.

However, given that the constitution in Malaysia and the definition of Malay is political, they consider themselves all Malay belonging to the greater Malay race of Nusantara/Malay archipelago. In Indonesia, it's a different story as each ethnic group have their own languages, written language and culture although there are some overlaps due to influences here and there. Most Indonesians are ethnic Javanese (about 100 million or more) with their own proud culture and history that predates Melaka so I don't think they would call themselves Malay as that would refer to the much smaller group in Indonesia.

Malaysian Chinese on the other hand, most of them descended from Southern Han Chinese. The Northern and Southern Han share the same DNA on the paternal side with slight difference on the maternal due to the fact that Han soldiers and people assimilated with the southern tribes thousand of years before when ancient Chinese were expanding their territory southwards from the Yellow River. The different dialect groups i.e. Cantonese, Hokkien represent their respective origins from each province/state. It is similar to Kedahan, Trengganu or Kelantanese, each Malay dialect different from each other, but all of them are ethnic Malays. The same goes for Cantonese, Hokkien, etc as they belong to the ethnic Han group, the biggest ethnic group in the world (fact). Of course due to admixtures, the southern Han Chinese differ from the north.

Weekday kerja la kawan. Nanti bos marah

Yeah, I know lol. Just that I beh tahan the misinformation and since the political landscape in Malaysia is always about race, the subject never really goes dead B-)

This post has been edited by luigee: Mar 25 2018, 09:48 PM

My understanding is, when Malays talk about race, it's NOT about the Malay ethnicity (or original Malay/anak jati Melayu) but about the race as in white, black, yellow, brown, etc. so they are referring to the Nusantara or Austronesian race to be exact. It's psychologically normal for people to associate themselves to a bigger/greater group to feel proud about themselves. That's why Malays in Malaysia like to associate themselves as WE Muslims (1.8 billion) or WE Malays (according to the 17-18th century concept by German scientist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach), whereas in Indonesia, your ethnic identity is stronger where Javanese people dominate and people like the Balinese Hindus continue to exert their unique identity against the tide of Javanisation.

Indians on the other hand I believe are of two races, Indo-Aryan (mostly Northern Indian like Punjabi, Gujarati, Bengali, Marathi, etc.) and Dravidian (Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalee). Each sub-races stated here are know as individual ethnic groups. Indo-Aryans are the ancient Iranians / Scythians that came from the north that displaced the Dravidians south and both are responsible for the great Indus civilization that lasted 10,000 years way before the great ancient Chinese civilization. However in today's society, we just simply refer to them as Indians, just like how we call the people from Pakistan (mostly Punjabis and some Pashtun) and Bangladesh (mostly Bengali people) by their country of origin.

Chinese on the other hand, you can refer to them as both race and ethnicity. As 90-95% of Chinese are of the ethnic Han group, it hardly makes any difference. DNA research has shown that they are differences between the Chinese, Korean and Japanese, so these 3 can be considered 3 difference races/nations as opposed to the Mongoloid race, although lookwise they are relatively similar.

Malays in Malaysia are actually a diversely mixed people, compared to Malaysian Indians and Chinese. In rural areas, the Malays are darker (sawo matang or ciku skin colour), but in the city they are all sort of tones (white, yellow, brown, sawo matang, etc). Most of them I can bet have Arab (Yemeni Hadrami blood) like your Syed xxx Alhabshi or Alsagoff, Indian like your Mydin, Merican, etc, Chinese, Mat Salleh (look at your Malay celebrities sudah tahu la) and all sorts of mix.

If you look at all our prime ministers, royalty, GLC corporate leaders, Malay elite etc. all of them have at least some non-Malay blood or ancestry. Like our first Malaysian astronaut, tengok nama dan muka pun tahu dah ada celup sini sana. Do you know that the Perak royal family has some Chinese ancestry (on top of Bugis, Minang, Arab, etc.)? Even the Johor family has some Chinese ancestry when Her Majesty Tuanku Permaisuri Zarith Sofiah married His Majestry Sultan Ibrahim. So their children actually have Malay, Bugis, English (via Sultan's mother) and some Chinese blood. Do you know Queen Zarith Sofiah actually did Chinese studies in Oxford (so she knows Mandarin)? Not to forget a lot of past Sultans and other states also had Chinese wives.

So the conclusion is, we should all strive to live in harmony and not talk about race all the time because we human beings are mixed at some point. And I can assure the Malays that no one is interested in removing your Malay rights as it's already in the constitution and it's all just political talk to gain more votes (army, police majority Malay what to scared about aiyo). Don't believe me just ask Tun Dr M lor lol. Like Chinese people, they only care if the gomen can improve the quality of education, chinese schools (at least primary level), allocate more scholarships (last time a lot of 9As and 10As students don't even get scholarships, now dunno la), and most importantly tackle corruption and leakages (dont' waste taxpayers money la). And if can accommodate other races and Bumiputera groups and their needs then Jibby can remain as PM for a long time.