Kendayan, Kanayatn, or Salako (Selako), is a
Malayic Dayak language of Borneo. The exact number of speakers remains unknown, but is estimated to be around 350,000.
[Thomas, Joseph, J. B. Mangunsudarsono, Hery Suryatman and Abdussamad. 1985. ''Morfologi kata kerja bahasa Kendayan''. Jakarta: Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengembangan Bahasa (Departmenen Pedidikan dan Kebudayan)]
The name ''Kendayan'' is preferred in
Kalimantan
Kalimantan (; ) is the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo. It constitutes 73% of the island's area, and consists of the provinces of Central Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, North Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, and West Kalimantan. The non-Ind ...
, Indonesia, and ''Salako'' in
Sarawak
Sarawak ( , ) is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia. It is the largest among the 13 states, with an area almost equal to that of Peninsular Malaysia. Sarawak is located in East Malaysia in northwest Borneo, and is ...
, Malaysia. It is sometimes referred to as , particularly in
Bengkayang Regency and the areas near Singkawang City.
Other dialects of Kendayan include Ahe, Banana and ''Belangin.'' Speakers of any of the dialects can understand speakers of any of the others.
Language context
Salako is spoken in the state of Sarawak in Malaysia and the province of West Kalimantan in Indonesia.
There are speakers in Sambas and Bengkayang Regencies and in Singkawang. Other dialects are spoken in the Pontianak, Bengkawang and Landak Regencies of West Kalimantan.
It is said that Singkawang in southern Sambas is the place of origin of Salako speakers.
Dialects spoken in West Kalimantan have been influenced by the
Indonesian, which is the national language 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, ...
. This is the language used in official contexts, schools, the media and in church.
In Sarawak, the influence of Malay has been less significant, as it became the national language more recently.
Kendayan is a vital language that is used in the community and at home. The Ahe variety is also spoken as a
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 ...
by native speakers with
Land Dayak groups.
However, younger speakers are typically educated through Indonesian away from the villages, which could affect language vitality in the future.
Comparison with other neighbouring languages
References
Sources
*
Further reading
* Alexander Adelaar. 2006
Where does Belangin belong? In Fritz Schulze and Holger Warnk (eds.), ''Insular Southeast Asia: Linguistic and cultural studies in Honour of
Bernd Nothofer'', 65–84. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
* Burkhardt, Jey Lingam. 2007
Group interaction patterns as observed in informal learning events among pre-literate/semi-literate Salako women
* Dunselman, Donatus. 1949, 1949, 1950. ''Bijdrage tot de kennis van de taal en adat der Kendajan Dajaks van West-Borneo''. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië 105, 105, 106
59–105147–218321–371
* Hermann, Paulus. 1988. A contrastive study on Kendayan and English consonants for the prediction of pronunciation difficulties. MA Thesis, Department of English, Faculty of Arts and Letters, Teaching Training College (IKIP), Yogyakarta.
* Hudson, Alfred B. 1970. A Note on Selako: Malayic Dayak and Land Dayak Languages in Western Borneo. ''Sarawak Museum Journal'' 18. 301–318.
* Lansau, Donatos. 1981. ''Struktur bahasa Kendayan''. Jakarta: Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengemban gan Bahasa, Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan.
* Joseph, Thomas. 1984. ''Morfologi dan sintaksis bahasa Kendayan''. Jakarta: Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengemban gan Bahasa, Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan.
* Sukamto. 1993. ''Tata bahasa Kendayan''. Jakarta: Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengemban gan Bahasa, Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan.
External links
Portions of the Book of Common Prayer
for Salako speakers, digitized by Richard Mammana and Charles Wohlers
{{Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian languages
Ibanic languages
Languages of Malaysia
Languages of Indonesia
Agglutinative languages