West Coast Bajau
| West Coast Bajau | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Spoken in |
Malaysia | |
| speaker | approx. 60,000 | |
| Linguistic classification |
|
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-3 |
bdr |
|
West Coast Bajau (also West Borneo Bajaw or Badjaw, Bajau, Badjao, Bajao, Bajo) is an Austronesian language that belongs to the subgroup of the Sama-Bajaw languages. The language is spoken in parts of Sabah on the island of Borneo .
The Bajau were known as sea nomads, which is why the different Sama-Bajaw languages have a large geographical distribution. West Coast Bajau today has around 60,000 speakers, most of whom grew up bilingual and, in addition to West Coast Bajau, also speak the official language of Malay . They themselves use the term ling sama to describe their language.
classification
The West Coast Bajau is one of nine subgroups of the Sama Bajaw languages, with an estimated total of 750,000-900,000 speakers. The Sama-Bajaw languages, in turn, belong to the West Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family.
Geographical distribution
Official status
West Coast Bajau is spoken by around 60,000 people on the north and west coast of Sabah on the island of Borneo. In addition to the West Coast Bajau speakers, Sabah is also home to speakers of other Sama Bajaw languages. However, the largest ethnic group in Sabah is not the Bajau, but the Kadazan-Dusun . Nevertheless, the West Coast Bajau is the predominant language in the region and has achieved the status of a lingua franca. The official language of Borneo, however, is Malay, which is why there are many Malay loanwords in the West Coast Bajau today.
Dialects
The exact number of dialects is unknown. There are either five dialect areas ( Kota Belud , Putatan , Kawang , Papar and Banggi ) or only three: the central dialect of the west coast, the dialect in the Pitas District and the dialect in Sandakan .
Phonology
Consonants
| bilabial |
labio- dental |
dental | alveolar |
post- alveolar |
retroflex | palatal | velar | uvular |
phase- ryngal |
glottal | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| stl. | sth. | stl. | sth. | stl. | sth. | stl. | sth. | stl. | sth. | stl. | sth. | stl. | sth. | stl. | sth. | stl. | sth. | stl. | sth. | stl. | sth. | |
| Plosives | p | b | t | d | ɖ | k | G | ʔ | ||||||||||||||
| Nasals | m | ɱ | n | ɲ | ŋ | |||||||||||||||||
| Vibrants | r | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Fricatives | s | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Approximants | j | ɰ | ||||||||||||||||||||
| lateral approximants | l | |||||||||||||||||||||
Vowels
| front | almost in front |
central | almost in the back |
back | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ung. | ger. | ung. | ger. | ung. | ger. | ung. | ger. | ung. | ger. | |
| closed | i | u | ||||||||
| half closed | e | O | ||||||||
| medium | ə | |||||||||
| open | a | |||||||||
Syllable structure
The vowel is mandatory for the syllable and can optionally be supplemented by consonants. This results in the following possibilities for the structure of the syllable: V, VC, CV, CVC.
Emphasis
The word accent is on the penultima (penultimate syllable) and is usually predictable: [ˈbokoɡ˺] 'bones'; [kəliˈŋaŋgaʔ] 'red ant'. The Schwa cannot have an accent, which creates exceptions to this rule: If / ǝ / is in the penultimate syllable, the last syllable is emphasized. When total reduplication occurs, there is a double emphasis: [ˈiŋor-ˈiŋor] 'be loud'.
Morphonology
There are different morphophonological phenomena: In addition to the elision of sounds (mostly the schwa or the glottic closure sound are affected) or the change of root vowels due to affixes for reasons of vowel harmony , the phenomenon of nasal fusion also occurs. The actual implementation of the nasal prefix varies depending on the articulation location of the prefixed consonant.
morphology
The formation of complex words and the inflection mechanisms are based on a concatenative procedure.
Word classes
- Open word classes: nouns, verbs, adjectives
- Closed word classes: prepositions, numerals, quantifiers, demonstratives, adverbs, interjections
Reduplication
In the West Coast Bajau, total reduplication is particularly common . But there are also cases of partial reduplication and foot reduplication .
The functions of reduplication are many. In some cases, it appears as an inherent structural feature ; H. the root itself is already a doubled form ( mono-mono 'suddenly'; kuro-kuro 'turtle'). It is also often used as a word formation process. manuk-manuk 'flying thing' ( manuk 'chicken'). Under certain circumstances, a change of word type can also take place here: sapu-sapu 'broom' ( sapu 'sweeping'). In general, reduplication is used in the West Coast Bajau as a productive word formation process to form plural forms , diminutives and interrogative pronouns or to express emphasis and repitative actions.
syntax
Subjects
The category 'subject' has led to a lively linguistic discussion in many Austronesian languages in the past. The problem in the West Coast Bajau is that the various grammatical functions, which prototypically coincide in the category 'subject', are often carried by different elements: on the one hand by the agent and on the other hand by the nominal NP . Mark T. Miller undertakes a categorization with a syntactic focus and states that in transitive sentences the nominal NP (which is selected by the verb morphology) carries the main grammatical functions and is therefore to be regarded as the 'subject'.
Diatheses
The semantic role of the argument is made clear by the morphological marking on the verb. In West Coast Bajau a distinction is made between AV ( actor voice ) and UV ( undergoer voice ) and this is then transported through all transitive verbs. Both sentences with UV and sentences with AV are therefore implemented transitively. It is therefore a symmetrical system. In addition to the deviating verb morphology, the sentence order also changes.
| AV |
| Mali boi ng-opo 'kayu e. |
| PN CMPL AV-chop wood DEM |
| 'Mali chopped the wood.' |
| UV |
| Boi ø-opo 'Mali kayu e. |
| CMPL UV-chop PN wood DEM |
| 'Mali chopped the wood.' |
| passive |
| Kayu e ni-opo '(le' Mali). |
| wood DEM PASS-chop PREP PN |
| 'The wood was chopped (from Mali).' |
Transitivity
Miller categorizes West Coast Bajau as a language with split transitivity . The intransitive verbs are thus not only unergativ , yet only unakkusativ but, depending on membership of a semantic group one or the other. The clearest unergative verbs are the volitional actions, the clearest unaccusative verbs are the change of state verbs. It is noticeable that the unaccusative verbs are mostly marked with zero , while the unergative verbs are marked morphologically.
Word order
West Coast Bajau is a VSO or SVO language. Word order is an important feature for identifying the argument structure, as there is no case marking : only the subject can appear preverbal.
literature
- Mark T. Miller: A grammar of West Coast Bajau . Doctoral dissertation. University of Texas at Arlington. 2007.