The National Language

It was the British who first made a serious study of Malay and malay literature-schoolars like William Marsden,John Leyden,Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, John Crawford,followed by men like W.E.Maxwell,R.J.Wilkinson and R.O.Winstedt ,to mention a few names only.........

A great many of the scholars and students of malay in the past were officials of the colonial governments,while the study of Malay and research into it at university level was done outside the area of the Malay language itself,although there was always research in the field,too......