The term Proto-Malay, which translates to Melayu asli (aboriginal Malay) or Melayu purba (ancient Malay), refers to the Mongoloids and Austronesian speakers from mainland Asia who moved to the Malay peninsular and Malay archipelago in a long series of migrations between 2500 and 1500 BC.

The Proto-Malays are believed to be seafarers knowledgeable in oceanography and possessing advanced fishing as well as basic agricultural skills. They moved around from island to island in great distances between New Zealand and Madagascar, and they served as navigation guides, crew and labour to Indian, Arab, Persian and Chinese traders for nearly 2000 years. Over the years, they settled at various places and adopted various cultures and religions as a result of acculturation and interracial and inter-tribal marriages with most of the people they come in contact with including with other Orang Asli tribes such as the Semang and Senoi peoples.

The Encyclopedia of Malaysia: Early History has pointed out three theories of the origin of the Proto-Malay:

The Filipino people or Filipinos are an Austronesian ethnic group native to the islands of the Philippines. There are about 94 million Filipinos in the Philippines, and about 11 million living outside the Philippines.

There are around 180 languages spoken in the Philippines, most of them belonging to the Austronesian language family, with Tagalog and Cebuano having the greatest number of native speakers. The official languages of the Philippines are Filipino and English and most Filipinos are bilingual or trilingual.

Most Filipinos refer to themselves colloquially as "Pinoy" (feminine: "Pinay"), which is a slang word formed by taking the last four letters of "Pilipino" and adding the diminutive suffix "-y". The lack of the letter "F" in the pre-1987 Philippine alphabet, Abakada, had caused the letter "F" to be substituted with "P". This is why, when the 28-letter modern Filipino alphabet was made official in 1987, the name Filipino was preferred over Pilipino. The name Filipino was chosen by the Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos, who named the islands "las Islas Filipinas" ("the Philippine Islands") after Philip II of Spain.

Malay Indonesians (Malay and Indonesian: Melayu Indonesia; Jawi script: ملايو إندونيسيا) are ethnic Malays living throughout Indonesia, as one of the indigenous peoples of the island nation. Indonesia has the second largest ethnic Malay population, after Malaysia. Historically, Indonesian, the national language of Indonesia, was derived from the Malay spoken in Riau archipelago, a province in eastern Sumatra. There were a number of Malay kingdoms in Indonesia that covered the islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan, of which some of the well-known ones were Srivijaya, Melayu Kingdom, Sultanate of Deli, Johor-Riau Sultanate and the Sultanate of Sambas.