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
Language convergence Language convergence Language convergence is a type of linguistic change in which languages come to structurally resemble one another as a result of prolonged language contact and mutual interference. In contrast to other contact-induced language changes like creolization or the formation of mixed languages, convergence refers to a mutual process that results in changes in all the languages involved. Linguists use the term to describe changes in the linguistic patterns of the languages in contact rather than alterations of isolated lexical items. Language convergence occurs in geographic areas with two or more unrelated languages in contact, resulting in groups of