The Brunei Malay language, or Kedayan (, Jawi: ) is the most widely spoken language in

Brunei Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely surrounded by th ...

and a

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...

in some parts of Sarawak and Sabah, such as

Labuan Labuan (), officially the Federal Territory of Labuan ( ms, Wilayah Persekutuan Labuan), is a Federal Territory of Malaysia. Its territory includes and six smaller islands, off the coast of the state of Sabah in East Malaysia. Labuan's capita ...

, Limbang, Lawas, Sipitang and

Papar The Papar (; from Latin ''papa'', via Old Irish, meaning "father" or "pope") were, according to early Icelandic sagas, Irish monks who took eremitic residence in parts of what is now Iceland before that island's habitation by the Norsemen ...

.Clynes, A. (2014). Brunei Malay: An Overview. In P. Sercombe, M. Boutin, & A. Clynes (Eds.), ''Advances in Research on Linguistic and Cultural Practices in Borneo'' (pp. 153–200). Phillips, ME: Borneo Research Council. Pre-publication draft available at http://fass.ubd.edu.bn/staff/docs/AC/Clynes-Brunei-Malay.pdfDeterding, David & Athirah, Ishamina. (2017). Brunei Malay. ''Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 47''(1), 99–108. doi:10.1017/S0025100316000189 Though Standard Malay is promoted as the official national language of Brunei, Brunei Malay is socially dominant and it is currently replacing the minority languages of Brunei,McLellan, J., Noor Azam Haji-Othman, & Deterding, D. (2016). The language situation in Brunei Darussalam. In Noor Azam Haji-Othman, J. McLellan, & D. Deterding (Eds.), ''The use and status of language in Brunei Darussalam: A kingdom of unexpected linguistic diversity'' (pp. 9–16). Singapore: Springer. including the Dusun and Tutong languages.Noor Azam Haji-Othman & Siti Ajeerah Najib (2016). The state of indigenous languages in Brunei. In Noor Azam Haji-Othman, J. McLellan, & D. Deterding (Eds.), ''The use and status of language in Brunei Darussalam: A kingdom of unexpected linguistic diversity'' (pp. 17–28). Singapore: Springer. It is quite divergent from Standard Malay to the point where it is almost mutually unintelligible with it. Although the idea that Brunei Malay might be classified as a

creole language A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages into a new one within a fairly brief period of time: often, a pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language. ...

has been discredited, it does bear considerable similarities to East Indonesian

Malay-based creole languages In addition to its classical and literary form, Malay had various regional dialects established after the rise of the Srivijaya empire in Sumatra, Indonesia. Also, Malay spread through interethnic contact and trade across the Malay Archipela ...

Phonology

The consonantal inventory of Brunei Malay is shown below:Clynes, Adrian & Deterding, David. (2011). Standard Malay (Brunei). ''Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 41''(2), 259–268. doi:10.1017/S002510031100017X Notes: # is dental in many varieties of Malay, but it is alveolar in Brunei. # is velar in initial position, but it is realised as uvular in coda. #Parenthesised sounds occur only in loanwords. #All consonants can occur in word-initial position, except . Therefore, Standard Malay 'forest' became in Brunei Malay, and Standard Malay 'black' became . #All consonants can occur in word-final position, except the palatals and voiced plosives . Exceptions can be found in a few borrowed words such as 'March' and 'kebab'. #Some analysts exclude and from this table because they are 'margin high vowels',Mataim Bakar. (2007). ''The phonotactics of Brunei Malay: An Optimality Theoretic account''. Bandar Seri Begawan: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka Brunei. while others include /w/ but exclude /j/. Brunei Malay vowel plot

Brunei Malay has a three-vowel system: , , .Poedjosoedarmo, G. (1996). Variation and change in the sound systems of Brunei dialects of Malay. In P. Martin, C. Ozog, & Gloria Poedjosoedarmo (Eds.), ''Language use and language change in Brunei Darussalam'' (pp. 37–42). Athens, OH: Ohio University Center for International Studies. Acoustic variation in the realisation of these vowels is shown in the plot on the right, based on the reading of a short text by a single female speaker. While is distinct from the other two vowels, there is substantial overlap between and . This is partly because of the vowel in the first syllable of words such as ('to blow') which can be realised as . Indeed, the Brunei Malay dictionary uses an 'e' for the prefix in this word, listing it as ,Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka Brunei. (2007). ''Kamus Bahasa Melayu Brunei'' (Edisi Kedua) runei Malay dictionary, 2nd edition Bandar Seri Begawan: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka Brunei. though other analyses prefer to show prefixes such as this with 'a', on the basis that Brunei Malay just has three vowel

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...

s.Jaludin Chuchu. (2000). ''Morphology of Brunei Malay''. Bangi: Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.

Language use

Brunei Malay, Kedayan and Kampong Ayer can be regarded as different dialects of Malay. ''Brunei Malay'' is used by the numerically and politically dominant Brunei people, who traditionally lived on water, while ''Kedayan'' is used by the land-dwelling farmers, and the ''Kampong Ayer'' dialect is used by the inhabitants of the river north of the capital. It has been estimated that 94% of the words of Brunei Malay and Kedayan are lexically related.Nothofer, B. (1991). The languages of Brunei Darussalam. In H. Steinhauer (Ed.), ''Papers in Austronesian Linguistics'' (pp. 151–172). Canberra: Australian National University. Coluzzi studied the street signs in

Bandar Seri Begawan Bandar Seri Begawan (BSB; Jawi: بندر سري بڬاوان; ) is the capital city of Brunei. It is officially a municipal area () with an area of and an estimated population of 100,700 as of 2007. It is part of Brunei-Muara District, the s ...

, the capital city of

Brunei Darussalam Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely surrounded by t ...

. The researcher concluded that except Chinese, "minority languages in Brunei have no visibility and play a very marginal role beyond the family and the small community."

Vocabulary words

Studies

The vocabulary of Brunei Malay has been collected and published by several western explorers in Borneo including Pigafetta in 1521, De Crespigny in 1872, Charles Hose in 1893, A. S. Haynes in 1900, Sidney H. Ray in 1913, H. B. Marshall in 1921, and G. T. MacBryan in 1922, and some Brunei Malay words are included in ''A Malay-English Dictionary'' by R. J. Wilkinson. The language planning of Brunei has been studied by some scholars.Clynes, Adrian. (2012)
Dominant language transfer in minority language documentation projects: Some examples from Brunei
''Language Documentation & Conservation, 6'', 253-267.

References

External links

The Pronunciation of Brunei Malay
{{Austronesian languages Malaysian culture Agglutinative languages Languages of Brunei Languages of Malaysia Malay dialects Malayic languages