About Malay Language
According to Wikipedia.org, Malay is the official language of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. It is also spoken unofficially in many parts of Thailand. You will be surprised to know that the native speakers of this language exceed 290 million. There are around 260 million people in Indonesia alone who speak Malay. Standard Malay has many different names. It is also known as Court Malay. Speakers find it easy to distinguish this language from others. Malay is written in the Latin script but Arabic script is also a huge part of it. However, this Latin script is more common among people of Malaysia and Brunei. Since the 17th century, this language is inspired by Dutch and Britain. Jawi script was also replaced by Rumi script that is now officially used for many purposes. Malay features many non-native consonants that are borrowed from English and Arabic words.
About Swahili Language
According to Wikipedia.org, Swahili is a popular Bantu language that is spoken in Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya. It is also widely spoken in Burundi, Mozambique, Oman, Somalia the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Africa. The total number of native speakers is 98 million. According to a survey in 2012, there are about 47 million speakers in Tanzania and around 34 million in Uganda. You will be surprised to know that there is a small number of speakers in other parts of the world. Swahili is written in the Arabic script and is very much influenced by the Latin alphabet. There are plenty of dialects of Swahili but the modern standard Swahili is based on Kiunguja. Some old dialects include Maho that is distinctive from other dialects. Kimwani is another dialect that is majorly spoken in Mozambique.
