MALAY RACE / BANGSA MELAYU

This article is about the Malay race. For the Malay ethnic group, see Malays (ethnic group). For other uses, see Malay (disambiguation).

Area historically regarded as being inhabited by the original Austronesian people and later migrations

The concept of a Malay race (Malay: Bangsa Melayu) was proposed by the German scientist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–1840), and classified as the brown race.^[1]Since Blumenbach, many anthropologists have rejected his theory of five races, citing the enormous complexity of classifying races. The concept of a "Malay race" differs with that of the Malay ethnic group centered around Malaysian Malay Peninsula and parts of theIndonesian island of Sumatra.

The term Malay race, was commonly used in the late 19th century and early 20th century. These peoples occupy an area that is generally coextensive with the area dominated byAustronesian peoples.^[2] The Malayan race are Austronesian people, though some used to claim they were a subrace of the Mongolian race.^[3]

With new scientific evidence presented by HUGO (Human Genome Organization) through genetic studies of the Asian races, the facts points to a single Asian migration from the South East Asian regions (which is predominantly populated by Austronesian races) travelling northwards and slowly populating East Asia (China, Korea and Japan) instead of the other way around as usually depicted.^[4]

from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangsa_Melayu