Malaysian language subject in primary and secondary schools. Article 152 of the Federation designates Malay as the official language. Between 1986 and 2007, the official term "Bahasa Malaysia" was replaced by ""Bahasa Melayu"". Today, to recognise that Malaysia is composed of many ethnic groups (and not only the ethnic Malays), the term "Bahasa Malaysia" has once again become the government's preferred designation for the ""Bahasa Kebangsaan"" (National Language) and the ""Bahasa Persatuan/Pemersatu"" (unifying language/lingua franca). The language is sometimes simply referred to as "BM" and often misnomered with the term "Bahasa". English continues, however, to be widely used in professional and commercial
Mixed language usage, creoles and pidgins are merely among the kinds of language that might become full-fledged mixed languages. Thomason (1995) classifies mixed languages into two categories: Category 1 languages exhibit "heavy influence from the dominant group's language in all aspects of structure and grammar as well as lexicon" (Winford 171). Category 2 languages show a "categorial specificity of the structural borrowing" or a uniform borrowing of specific categories (Winford). Mixed language and intertwined language are seemingly interchangeable terms for some researchers. Some use the term "intertwining" instead of "mixing" because the former implies "mixture of two systems which are not necessarily