Historical Cultural Linkages between Iran and Southeast Asia: Entered Persian Vocabularies in the Malay Language

Abstract
There is a long history of the relationship, for centuries, between Iran and Southeast Asian countries through land and sea roads, named in turn Silk Road and Sea Way in the trajectory from Iran to India, Southeast Asia and China, which have caused a deep dialogue on trade and cultural ties. This relationship with the region dated back to the dynasty of Parthian, 250 years B.C., while propagating Zoroastrianism by Iranian traders. Proceeding entrance of Islam, the existing ties strengthened from the first century of Hegira or at least the thirtieth century that the climax of these interactions go to the 14^th up to the 19^th century A.C. In this light, is it the entered Persian vocabularies in Malay language as an evidence of the long and old relationships? The researcher examined and compared the Persian with Malay vocabularies by the official Malay and Indonesian dictionaries, and also assessing the researches by Indonesian, Malaysian and Europeans from the point of view of grammatical, literal, semantic, application, proverbs and expressions. The conclusion of this study revealed that the glory of this interaction and relationship comeback to the 14^th up to the 19^th century A.C., but negligence of the period from 250 years B.C. up to the 14^th century A.C., is not appropriate; thus, the commencement of lingual relation is before the emergence of Islam and at least from the Sassanid dynasty. The ascent of Islam had made these interactions deeper and deeper with a strong impact of Persian language on Arabic language, because of the old relations between Iranian kings and people with the Arabs. The researcher explored approximately 400 Persian vocabularies entered in Malay language. In comparing Persian and Malay vocabularies through literary and common usage, 50 Persian vocabularies moved to the literal usage in Malay language, and 100 Persian vocabularies decreased from the common usage in Malay language. Meanwhile, 280 Arabic vocabularies in Malay language have been influenced by Persian “T”, kinship and accentuate of Persian “I”, more usage and also more than 50 Iranian names that the majority of them are in common usage; all in all, demonstrates the deep and old relationship. More than 143 vocabularies in trade and related material in nature and more than 127 vocabularies in governmental and religious affairs is crystal clear a distinction of an old relation among traders, scholars, Kingdoms and People, before and after the wake of Islam.