Language guide

Malay (Bahasa Melayu)

Malay (ms, msa) is a world language. Wikidata records about 77M speakers. It is written in Jawi and Latin script. It is an official language in 3 countries, including Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore.

Malay (Malaysia) and Indonesian are mutually intelligible but differ in vocabulary and spelling conventions.

Expect text translated from English into Malay to grow by roughly 10–25%, which matters for layouts, subtitles and page counts.

77M
Speakers
+10…+25%
Text length vs English
$0.06–0.14
Indicative rate / word

Translation guides

Where Malay is official

  • Brunei
  • Malaysia
  • Singapore

Rates for Malay translation

Malay falls in our south & southeast asian band: roughly $0.06–$0.14 per word for general commercial work. These are indicative ranges, not quotes — specialised, certified and rush work costs more, and literary translation is usually priced per 1,000 words.

For context, the median salaried translator or interpreter in the US earned $60,170 in May 2025 (BLS). See salaries by state →

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