Literary data on the position of Malay in Java
Malay was not only a lingua franca of trade in maritime Southeast Asia, but it also found its way into Javanese literature. In coastal towns in Indonesia, the contact between people from different ethnicities was particularly intense. The Sêrat Jayalêngkara, a Muslim book written in the East Javanese coastal area during the 18th century, contains speeches by two characters in oral Malay which indicate that the author of the work was bilingual. The Manik Maya, which was written two years later in the surroundings of the Surakarta court in inland Java, included passages in a more literary variety of Malay. In turn, Javanese was also used in Malay literature.
