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Language Lineage

Aslian

The languages of the Orang Asli of the Malay Peninsula, divided into Northern, Central and Southern groups, surviving in the interior among Malay speakers.

c. 2nd millennium BCE – presentThe interior of the Malay Peninsula (Malaysia and southern Thailand)
On this page
  1. Origins
  2. Among Malay Speakers
  3. Where it's spoken
  4. Turning points

01

Origins

The Aslian languages are spoken by the Orang Asli ('original people') of the Malay Peninsula's forested interior. Their speakers include hunter-gatherers such as the Jahai and Batek, and farmers such as the Semai and Temiar. Their ancestors are thought to have reached the peninsula from the north with early farming, perhaps in the second millennium BCE, before Malay speakers arrived from Sumatra and Borneo.

The Aslian languages have become well known in cognitive science: Asifa Majid and Niclas Burenhult (2014) found that Jahai speakers name smells with a set of abstract terms as readily as English speakers name colours, which challenged the idea that humans cannot talk about smell.

02

Among Malay Speakers

As Malay spread through the peninsula, the Orang Asli were pushed inland and took many Malay words, and some groups shifted to Malay altogether. That history links the Aslian branch to the Malayic branch on the Austronesian tree. In the 20th century government resettlement, Malay-medium schooling and the loss of forest have put all the Aslian languages under pressure, and several have only a few hundred speakers.

On the map

Where it’s spoken

Spoken todayShading marks whole countries, not the regions within them.
  1. Malaysia
  2. Thailand

Figures are rough first-language estimates, rounded, from censuses and Ethnologue. Counts for small or scattered communities are especially uncertain.

Rings along the limb

Turning points

Oldest first.

  1. Splitc. 2nd millennium BCEContested

    Into the Malay Peninsula

    Austroasiatic speakers move south into the Malay Peninsula and develop the Aslian languages. Whether they are closest to Nicobarese or to another mainland branch, and when they arrived, are debated.

    Sources (1)
    • Sidwell, Paul & Roger Blench. 2011. The Austroasiatic Urheimat: The southeastern riverine hypothesis. In Dynamics of Human Diversity, ed. N. J. Enfield. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
  2. Contact1st millennium CE onward

    Malay arrives

    Malay speakers settle the coasts and rivers of the peninsula. Aslian languages borrow heavily from Malay, and some Orang Asli groups shift to Malay entirely.

    Sources (1)
    • Jenny, Mathias & Paul Sidwell, eds. 2015. The Handbook of Austroasiatic Languages. Leiden: Brill.
  3. Contact20th – 21st century

    Resettlement and schooling

    Government resettlement, logging, Malay-medium education and conversion programmes weaken the transmission of Aslian languages, many of which are now endangered.

    Sources (1)
    • Jenny, Mathias & Paul Sidwell, eds. 2015. The Handbook of Austroasiatic Languages. Leiden: Brill.