Abstract—The word “
Keling” in Malaysia has become a
socially undesirable term and it has a derogatory connotation
for Malaysians of Indian origin. Though the word existed in the
Malay vocabulary since 15th century, there was an attempt to
remove it from the Malay dictionary due to its negative
connotations. Therefore, this study was conducted to analyze
the images of “
Keling” amongst the Malays circa 14th to 15th
centuries. The analysis on the discourse is to discover the
semantics of the word “
Keling” in the 17th century Malay epic
Sulalat al-Salatin. From this study, it was found that the
historical relationship between Malacca and “keling” started
early than 15th century. “
Keling” played a very important role
to help the administration of the Malacca Malay Empire.
Generally, the word “
Keling” has been used mostly with a
positive connotation in
Sulalat al-Salatin.
Index Terms—Keling, Malacca, Malay Annals,
Sulalat
al-Salatin.
Abdur-Rahman Mohamed Amin and Ahmad Murad Merican are with the
Department of Management and Humanities, Universiti Teknologi Petronas,
Bandar Seri Iskandar, 31750, Tronoh, Perak, Malaysia (e-mail:
urrahman_amin@petronas.com.my,
amurad_noormerican@petronas.com.my).
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Cite: Abdur-Rahman Mohamed Amin and Ahmad Murad Merican, " The Images of “Keling” in Sulalat al-Salatin," International Journal of Social Science and Humanity vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 178-182, 2014.