My Moments Diary: religion and language of malaysia

Religion

Kampung Laut Mosque in Tumpat is one of the oldest mosques in Malaysia, dating to early 18th century

The Malaysian constitution guarantees freedom of religion, although Islam is the largest and official religion of Malaysia. According to the Population and Housing Census 2000 figures, approximately 60.4% of the population practiced Islam; 19.2% Buddhism; 9.1% Christianity; 6.3% Hinduism; and 2.6% practice Confucianism, Taoism and other traditional Chinese religions. The remainder was accounted for by other faiths, including animism, folk religion, andSikhism while 0.9% either reported having no religion or did not provide any information.^[139]^[140]

All ethnic Malays are considered Muslim by Article 160 of the Constitution.^[141] Statistics from the 2000 Census indicate that 75.9% of Malaysian Chineseidentify as Buddhist, with significant numbers of adherents following Taoism (10.6%) and Christianity (9.6%), along with small Hui-Muslim populations in areas like Penang.^[140] The majority of Malaysian Indians follow Hinduism (84.5%), with a significant minority identifying as Christians (7.7%), Muslims (3.8%), over 150,000 Sikhs, and 1,000 Jains. Christianity is the predominant religion of the non-Malay Bumiputra community (50.1%) with an additional 36.3% identifying as Muslims and 7.3% follow folk religion.^[140]

Muslims are obliged to follow the decisions of Syariah courts in matters concerning their religion. The Islamic judges are expected to follow the Shafi`i legal school of Islam, which is the main madh'hab of Malaysia.^[142] The jurisdiction of Shariah courts is limited only to Muslims in matters such as marriage,inheritance, divorce, apostasy, religious conversion, and custody among others. No other criminal or civil offences are under the jurisdiction of the Shariah courts, which have a similar hierarchy to the Civil Courts. Despite being the supreme courts of the land, the Civil Courts (including the Federal Court) do not hear matters related to Islamic practices.^[143]

[edit]Language

Main article: Languages of Malaysia

The official language of Malaysia is known as Bahasa Malaysia, a standardised form of the Malay language.^[144] English was, for a protracted period, the de facto, administrative language of Malaysia, though its status was later rescinded. English remains an active second language in many areas of Malaysian society and is compulsory, serving as the medium of instruction for Maths and Sciences in all public schools.^[145]^[146] Malaysian English, also known as Malaysian Standard English (MySE), is a form of English derived from British English, although there is little official use of the term, except with relation to education. Malaysian English also sees wide use in business, along with Manglish, which is a colloquial form of English with heavy Malay, Chinese dialect and Tamil influences. Most Malaysians are conversant in English, although some are only fluent in the Manglish form. The Malaysian government officially discourages the use of Manglish.^[147] Citizens of Minangkabau,Bugis or Javanese origins, who can be classified "Malay" under constitutional definitions may also speak their respective ancestral tongues.

Many other languages exist in Malaysia, which contains speakers of 137 living languages.^[148] Peninsular Malaysia contains speakers of 41 of these languages.^[149] The native tribes of East Malaysia have their own languages which are related to, but easily distinguishable from, Malay. The Iban is the main tribal language in Sarawak while Dusunic languages are spoken by the natives in Sabah.^[150]Chinese Malaysians mostly speak Chinese dialects from the southern provinces of China. The more common dialects in Peninsular Malaysia are Cantonese, Mandarin, Hokkien, Hakka, Hainanese, and Fuzhou. Tamil is used predominantly by Malaysian Tamils who form a majority of Malaysian Indians. Malaysian Tamil is significant dialect which is different from Tamil spoken in India with many loan words from Malay has entered into the vocabulary of Malaysian Tamil.Other south Asian languages are also widely spoken in Malaysia.Thai is spoken by Malaysian which are of Thai descent and by others who live near the Malaysia-Thai border.^[2] A small number of Malaysians have caucasian ancestry and speak creole languages, such as the Portugese based Malaccan Creoles,^[151] and the Spanish based Chavacano language.^[152]