I am writing a book about Malaysia’s ethnic order*, using the Malay world as a way to think more generally about social categories like ethnicity and how to conceptualize them. This book project combines all of my interests: maritime Southeast Asia, political economy, colonial history (Portuguese, Dutch, English, and Japanese), language, analytic philosophy, social ontology, […]
Category: Language
The Proposal to Make Malay an Official ASEAN Language is not Crazy
Last week the Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob remarked that Malay has the potential to be an official language of Southeast Asia. This feels like a rather surreal moment in Malaysian politics, at least according to most of the popular media coverage I’ve seen. Like of course that’s not going to happen, right? I […]