term "Orang Asli", carrying the same sense of "original people", was born. The term was officially used in English, where it is identical in both the singular and the plural. Despite its origin as an exonym, the term was adopted by indigenous peoples themselves. Ethnogenesis The Orang Asli makes up one of 95 subgroups of indigenous people of Malaysia, the Orang Asal, each with their own distinct language and culture. The British colonial government classified the indigenous population of the Malay Peninsula on physiological and cultural-economic grounds upon which the Aboriginal Department (responsible for dealing with Orang Asli issues since the British Malaya government) developed their own classification of indigenous tribes based on their physical characteristics, linguistic kinship, cultural practices and geographical settlement. This divides Orang Asli into three main categories, with six ethnic subgroups each (totaling 18 ethnic subgroups). Negrito (or Semang), generally located in the northern portion of the peninsula, were short dark-skinned nomadic hunter-gatherers with Asiatic facial features and tightly curly hair. Senoi (or Sakai), residing in the central region, were wavy-haired people taller than the Negrito, engaged in slash-and-burn agriculture, and periodically changed their place of residence. Proto-Malay (or Aboriginal Malay), living in the southern region, were settled farmers, dark-skinned, of normal height, with straight hair. This division does not claim to be scientific and has many shortcomings. The boundaries between the groups are not fixed, and merge into each other, and the Orang Asli themselves use names associated with their specific area or by a local term meaning 'human being'. The Semang are descendants of the Hoabinhian people, who the evidence indicates were in the Malay Peninsula between 16,000 and 8,000 years ago. The Senoi are, to a lesser extent, also descents of the Hoabinnhian people, but are more closely associated with the Neolithic Southern Mongoloid people who migrated into the Malay Peninsula about 2000 BC. Both groups speak Austroasiatic languages (also known as Mon-Khmer language). The Proto-Malays, who speak Austronesian languages, migrated to the area between 2000 and 1500 BC, originally from southern China. The Orang Asli were originally considered ethnic Malay, but reclassified as part of Orang Asli by the British colonial authorities due to the similarity of their socio-economic and lifestyles with the Senoi and Semang. There are various degrees of admixture within all three groups and only over time did indigenous peoples began to identify themselves under a common name "Orang