The Malay language (Bahasa Melayu; Jawi script: بهاس ملايو‎), is an Austronesian langaage spoken by the Malay people who reside in the Malay Peninsula, southern Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, central eastern Sumatra, the Riau islands, parts of the coast of Borneo, Cocos and Christmas Islands in Australia, and even in the Netherlands[1]. It is an official language of Malaysia, Brunei, and Singapore. It is very similar to Indonesian, known locally as Bahasa Indonesia, the official language of Indonesia.

In Malaysia, the language is officially known as Bahasa Malaysia, which translates as the "Malaysian language". The term, which was introduced by the National Language Act 1967, was predominant until the 1990s, when most academics and government officials reverted to "Bahasa Melayu," which is used in the Malay version of the Federal Constitution. According to Article 152 of the Federal Constitution, Bahasa Melayu is the official language of Malaysia. "Bahasa kebangsaan" (National language) was also used at one point during the 1970s. As of late, however, the name has been reverted back to "Bahasa Malaysia".

In spoken Malay and Malaysian English, the language is also referred to by the initialism BM.

Indonesia adopted a form of Malay as its official language upon independence, naming it Bahasa Indonesia and although a large degree of mutual intelligibility exists, Indonesian is distinct in many ways from Malay as spoken in Malaysia. In Singapore and Brunei it is known simply as Malay or Bahasa Melayu. 'Bahasa Melayu' is specified as the Brunei's official language by the country's 1959 Constitution.

However, many Malay dialects are not as mutually intelligible: for example, Kelantanese pronunciation is difficult even for some Malaysians to understand, while Indonesian tends to have a lot of words unique to it which will be unfamiliar to other speakers of Malay.

The language spoken by the Peranakan (Straits Chinese, a hybrid of Chinese settlers from the Ming Dynasty and local Malays) is a unique patois of Malay and the Chinese dialect of Hokkien (Min Nan), which is mostly spoken in the former Straits Settlements of Penang and Malacca.