This research represents the first attempt to produce a working system for the automatic processing of texts of Bahasa Melayu âMalayâ. At the heart of the system is an integrated relational lexical database called MALEX, which draws on the experience of working on English and other languages, but which is specifically tailored to the conditions of Malay. The development of the database is from the beginning entirely data driven, and is based on the analysis of a corpus of naturally produced Malay texts. In designing procedures which access the database, properties of the text are consistently and rigorously distinguished from properties of the lexicon and of the grammar. The system is currently used to provide information for a range of applications, for grammatical tagging, stemming and lemmatisation, parsing, and for generating phonological representations. It is hoped and intended that the design features of MALEX will be transferable, and provide a model for the development of working systems for other Asian languages.