Proto-Malay

English

Etymology

proto- +‎ Malay

Noun

Proto-Malay (plural Proto-Malays)

1. (historical) An Austronesian speaker who moved from mainland Asia to the Malay peninsula and Malay archipelago in a long series of migrations between 2500 and 1500 BC, before that of the Deutero-Malays about a thousand years later.