Kod Tangan Bahasa Malaysia (KTBM), or Manually Coded Malay, is a signed form of the
Malay language
Malay (; ms, Bahasa Melayu, links=no, Jawi: , Rencong: ) is an Austronesian language that is an official language of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, and that is also spoken in East Timor and parts of the Philippines an ...
recognized by the government in
Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federal constitutional monarchy consists of thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two regions: Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo's East Mal ...
and the
Malaysian Ministry of Education. It is used as an aid to teachers teaching the Malay language to deaf students in formal education settings. It is not itself a language, but a
manually coded form of Malay. It was adapted from
American Sign Language
American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States of America and most of Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that is expre ...
(or perhaps
Manually Coded English), with the addition of some local signs, plus grammatical signs to represent Malay affixation of nouns and verbs. It is used in Deaf schools for the purpose of teaching the Malay language.
The official
Malaysian Sign Language, known as ''Bahasa Isyarat Malaysia'', is the official sign language recognised by the Malaysian government to communicate with the deaf community, including on official broadcasts. It is a language in its own right and not a manual coding of the Malay language like KTBM.
{{sign language navigation
Malay language
Malay