The Malay term
Tanah Melayu is derived from the word
Tanah (land) and
Melayu (
Malays), thus it means "the Malay land". The term can be found in various Malay texts, of which the oldest dating back to the early 17th century. It is frequently mentioned in the
Hikayat Hang Tuah, a well-known classic tale associated with the legendary heroes of
Malacca Sultanate.
Tanah Melayu in the text is consistently employed to refer to the area under Malaccan dominance. In the
Negarakertagama manuscript written in 1365, this area is called
Hujung Medini. In the early 16th century,
Tomé Pires, a Portuguese
apothecary who stayed in
Malacca from 1512 to 1515, uses an almost identical term,
Terra de Tana Malaio, with which he referred to the southeastern part of Sumatra, where the deposed sultan of Malacca,
Mahmud Shah, established his exiled government. The 17th century's account of Portuguese historian,
Emanuel Godinho de Erédia, noted on the region of
Malaios surrounded by the
Andaman Sea in the north, the entire
Strait of Malacca in the centre, a part of
Sunda Strait in the south, and the western part of
South China Sea in the east. Prior to the foundation of Malacca, ancient and medieval references to a Malay peninsula exist in various foreign sources. According to several Indian and Western scholars, the word
Malayadvipa ("mountain-insular continent"), mentioned in the ancient Indian text,
Vayu Purana, may possibly refer to the Malay Peninsula. Another Indian source, an inscription on the south wall of the
Brihadeeswarar Temple, recorded the word
Malaiur, referring to a kingdom in the Malay Peninsula that had "a strong mountain for its rampart".
Ptolemy's
Geographia named a geographical region of the
Golden Chersonese as
Maleu-kolon, a term thought to derive from Sanskrit
malayakolam or
malaikurram.
Tabula Rogeriana completed by an Arab geographer
Muhammad al-Idrisi, reflects the Malay peninsula as a long island and called it Malai, bordering the Qmer (
Khmer) and lying 12 days sail from Sanf (
Champa). While the Chinese chronicle of the
Yuan dynasty mentioned the word
Ma-li-yu-er, referring to a nation of the Malay Peninsula that was threatened by the southward expansion of the
Sukhothai Kingdom under King
Ram Khamhaeng. During the same era,
Marco Polo made a reference to
Malauir in his
travelogue, as a kingdom located in the Malay Peninsula, possibly similar to the one mentioned in the Yuan chronicle. The Malay Peninsula was conflated with
Persia in old Japan, and was known by the same name. In the early 20th century, the term
Tanah Melayu was generally used by the Malays of the peninsula during the rise of
Malay nationalism to describe uniting all
Malay states on the peninsula under one Malay nation, and this ambition was largely realised with the formation of
Persekutuan Tanah Melayu (
Malay for "
Federation of Malaya") in 1948. ==Ecology==