Malay Vernacular in Indonesia and Malaysia: the Relationship between Language and Architecture

It is widely believed that language is used to define ethnicity and at the same time provides cultural identity of the people who use it. At the same time cultural identity of the people can also be represented in the form of traditional house. Malay is considered as a language of the people who occupied Malacca Peninsula and its surrounding regions. The spread of Malay language through the people in different regions represents the spread of Malay as an influential language in this region and its surroundings. This paper reports on the relationship between language and architecture in terms of Malay vernacular. To support the understanding and explanation about the topic, the data administered through an observational study and interview sessions during a field work in Kuching, Malaysia and Pontianak, Indonesia. The cultural understanding about Malay vernacular can best be replaced by the concepts of architecture in Malay traditional houses. The parts and sections of Malay houses represent the openness towards outside and new influences, which accommodate creative and innovative forms added to Malay houses. This openness can be traced in terms of language, which is represented in the form of having many and various borrowing words from other languages. The simplicity of Malay house is the representation of the simplicity of Malay language as can be seen mainly in the form of grammatical features of Malay language. The clear separation on the role of the women and men is also accommodated through the clear separation on the function of each room in the house. However, this clear separation is not clearly represented in the form of gender differences in terms of language. In sum, there is a clear relationship between Malay language and architecture in terms of its simplicity, its openness, and its adaptability towards foreign influences