Coastal Kadazan, also known as , is a dialect of the Kadazan Dusun language as well as a minority language primarily spoken in

Sabah Sabah () is a state of Malaysia located in northern Borneo, in the region of East Malaysia. Sabah borders the Malaysian state of Sarawak to the southwest and the North Kalimantan province of Indonesia to the south. The Federal Territory ...

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federal constitutional monarchy consists of thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two regions: Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo's East Mal ...

. It is the primary dialect spoken by the Kadazan people in the west coast of Sabah especially in the districts of Penampang,

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 ...

and

Membakut Membakut is a subdistrict in the Interior Division, Sabah, Malaysia. Located in Beaufort District, Membakut railway station is one of the stops for Sabah State Railway Sabah State Railway (SSR) is a railway system and operator in the state ...

(sub-district of

Beaufort Beaufort may refer to: People and titles * Beaufort (surname) * House of Beaufort, English nobility * Duke of Beaufort (England), a title in the peerage of England * Duke of Beaufort (France), a title in the French nobility Places Polar regions * ...

Characteristics

The use of Coastal Kadazan has been declining due to the use of Malay by the

Malaysian federal government The Government of Malaysia, officially the Federal Government of Malaysia ( ms, Kerajaan Persekutuan Malaysia), is based in the Federal Territory of Putrajaya with the exception of the legislative branch, which is located in Kuala Lumpur. Malays ...

and by the use of

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

missionaries A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...

, which was done through the method of

language shift Language shift, also known as language transfer or language replacement or language assimilation, is the process whereby a speech community shifts to a different language, usually over an extended period of time. Often, languages that are percei ...

enforced by the work of both the colonial and federal governments. The state of Sabah has introduced policies to prevent this decline, which is also happening to other native Sabahan languages. This included the policy of using Kadazan and other indigenous languages in public schools. Efforts have also been done to allow the language to become official in the state. Coastal Kadazan has adopted many loanwords, particularly from other northern Borneo indigenous languages and also Malay. Kadazan extensively employs the voiced alveolar sibilant fricative in their native lexicons, a feature found in only a few Austronesian languages. The Tsou and Paiwan languages also have these particular elements, spoken by the

Taiwanese aborigines Taiwanese may refer to: * Taiwanese language, another name for Taiwanese Hokkien * Something from or related to Taiwan ( Formosa) * Taiwanese aborigines, the indigenous people of Taiwan * Han Taiwanese, the Han people of Taiwan * Taiwanese peo ...

. Another language is Malagasy spoken in the island of

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Afric ...

thousands of miles away off the coast of Africa. Coastal Kadazan is highly

mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as a ...

with Central Dusun and is considered by many to be the same language. Under the efforts of the Kadazandusun Cultural Association Sabah, in 1995, the central Bundu-Liwan dialect (Central Dusun) was selected to serve as the basis for a standardised "Kadazandusun" language. This dialect was selected as it was deemed to be the most mutually intelligible when conversing with other "Dusun" or "Kadazan" dialects.

Phonology

Miller (1993) lists the following phonemes: ranges from weakly rounded to unrounded. Four borrowed consonants from Malay and English include .

Sample prayers

Our Father

:Translation: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

Hail Mary

:Translation: Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us, sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Austronesian languages comparison table

Below is a table of Kadazan and other Austronesian languages comparing thirteen words.

References

External links

KadazanHomeland
{{Austronesian languages Sabahan languages Languages of Malaysia Languages of Sabah Verb–subject–object languages