The name Malay is from Malayu, a kingdom on Sumatra's eastern coast (today's Jambi, Indonesia). It is derived from the Javanese terms mlayu(“to steadily accelerate or to run”), to describe the strong current of a river in the Indonesian island of Sumatra that today bears the name Sungai Melayu (“Melayu River”) which is the right branch going upriver of Batang Hari whose watershed reaches Pagaruyung. The name was later adopted by the Melayu Kingdom, as it is common for people in the region to be known by the name of the river on which they settled.
The earliest and the oldest know written records in the Malay language are Indonesia's Sumatran inscriptions dating from the late 7th century, written in the Kawi (Old Javanese) script. These inscriptions were found at Kedukan Bukit and Talang Tuo, both in the vicinity of Palembang in southern Sumatra, as well as at Kota Kapur on Bangka Island, west of Sumatra, all located in present-day Indonesia.
