The best languages of the five respondents who identified themselves as something other than pure Malay are shown below:
Note that the Malay/Kedayan, the Dusun/Belait, and one of the Chinese respondents indicated Brunei Malay (BM) as their best language. Of these five respondents, only one of the Chinese did not indicate any ability in Brunei Malay.It is also interesting to consider the language that the 40 Malays stated they use with Chinese friends: nearly half of them (18) indicated a mixture of Brunei Malay and English, while the same number (18) indicated English alone.
In conclusion, it seems that Brunei Malay is the most common lingua franca in Brunei, even among non-Malays, though English also has an important role.
