Ma'anyan or Ma'anjan or Maanyak Dayak is an Austronesian language belonging to the

East Barito languages The East Barito languages are a group of a dozen Dayak ( Austronesian) languages of Borneo, Indonesia, and most notably Malagasy, the national language of Madagascar. They are named after the Barito River located in South Kalimantan, Indonesia. ...

. It is spoken by about 150,000

Ma'anyan people Ma'anyan (colonial spelling Maanjan or Meanjan), Dayak Maanyan or Eastern Barito Dayak people are a sub-ethnic group of the Dayak people indigenous to Borneo. They are also considered as part of the east Barito Dusun group with the name Dusun Ma ...

(subgroup of

Dayak people The Dayak (; older spelling: Dajak) or Dyak or Dayuh are one of the native groups of Borneo. It is a loose term for over 200 riverine and hill-dwelling ethnic groups, located principally in the central and southern interior of Borneo, each w ...

) living in the province of

Central Kalimantan Central Kalimantan ( id, Kalimantan Tengah) is a province of Indonesia. It is one of five provinces in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo. Its provincial capital is Palangka Raya and in 2010 its population was over 2.2 million, while the 20 ...

and

South Kalimantan South Kalimantan ( id, Kalimantan Selatan) is a province of Indonesia. It is the smallest province in Kalimantan, the Indonesian territory of Borneo. The provincial capital was Banjarmasin until 15 February 2022 when it was legally moved to B ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...

. It is closely related to the

Malagasy language Malagasy (; ) is an Austronesian language and the national language of Madagascar. Malagasy is the westernmost Malayo-Polynesian language, brought to Madagascar by the settlement of Austronesian peoples from the Sunda islands around the 5th c ...

spoken in

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 ...

Phonology

Consonants

can also be heard as a tap sound .

Vowels

can be heard as in closed syllables.

Connection with Malagasy

The Malagasy language is an Austronesian language spoken in Madagascar. Malagasy is believed to have originated from the Southeast Barito language, and Ma'anyan is believed to be its closest relative, with numerous Malay and Javanese loanwords. It is known that

were brought as labourers and slaves by Malay and Javanese people in their trading fleets, which reached Madagascar by ca. 50–500 AD. There is high lexical similarity with other East Barito languages like Paku (77%) and Dusun Witu (75%).

Vocabulary

Vocabulary comparison between Malay, Banjarese, Ma'anyan, and Malagasy.

References

External links

Ma'anyan language and grammar
(in Ma'anyan) East Barito languages Languages of Indonesia {{austronesian-lang-stub