The Banjar or Banjarese (; , Jawi: ) is an

Austronesian language The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken b ...

of the Malayic branch predominantly spoken by the Banjarese—an indigenous ethnic group native to Banjar regions— in the southeastern Kalimantan of

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

. The Banjarese language is the

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...

for various indigenous community especially in South Kalimantan, as well as

Central Kalimantan Central Kalimantan () is a provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia. It is one of five provinces in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo. It is the largest province in Indonesia by area since 2022, bordered by West Kalimantan to the west ...

(notably in Seruyan Regency and Sukamara Regency) and East Kalimantan in general. Apart from the native Banjarese in Indonesia, the Banjarese language also spoken by little Banjarese diaspora abroad (such as in

Brunei Brunei, officially Brunei Darussalam, is a country in Southeast Asia, situated on the northern coast of the island of Borneo. Apart from its coastline on the South China Sea, it is completely surrounded by the Malaysian state of Sarawak, with ...

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

(notably in

Sabah Sabah () is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia located in northern Borneo, in the region of East Malaysia. Sabah has land borders with the Malaysian state of Sarawak to the southwest and Indonesia's North Kalima ...

and

Perak Perak (; Perak Malay: ''Peghok'') is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula. Perak has land borders with the Malaysian states of Kedah to the north, Penang to the northwest, Kel ...

), and

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

); however, they tend to not use it as their primary language, and their fluency degree is questionable.

Dialects

There are at least two divisions of dialects within the Banjarese language: #Banjar Hulu #Banjar Kuala According to Cense, the Banjar Hulu dialect are predominantly spoken by Banjarese people in the South Hulu Sungai Regency and North Hulu Sungai Regency regions. Berangas language, a Barito language that is almost extinct in South Kalimantan, also has a close relationship with Banjar Kuala dialect, where it absorbs much of the Banjarese language vocabulary, but lexically it is closer to other Barito languages, especially Bakumpai language.

Phonology

Consonants

The consonantal inventory of Banjarese language is shown below. All but occur at the onset of a syllable: * is an allophone of at the end of a word. * The following consonants can close a CVC syllable: . Words cannot begin with consonant clusters. Within a root, an NC sequence will always be homorganic, though reduplication and a few prefixes such as ''sing-'' can produce other sequences, e.g. . Other medial sequences include and .

Vowels

Sudarmo finds five monophthongs: is an allophone of . Durasid finds three monophthongs and three diphthongs in Pahuluan Banjarese: Regionally, has an allophone and has an allophone . The diphthongs are . Loans with /e/ or /o/ are assimilated to these three vowels. E.g. is realized as . However, since most Banjarese speakers are effectively bilingual, this realization becomes rarer.

Alphabet

The standard alphabet is as follows:

References

Bibliography

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External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Banjar Language Agglutinative languages Languages of Indonesia Languages of Malaysia South Kalimantan Banjar people Malayic languages