Tatana (Tatanaq) is a
Sabahan language 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 federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
. Due to limited studies, it is hard to ascertain whether Tatana requires a category on its own or is considered a Bisaya variety based on its 90% linguistic intelligibility with the closely related Bisaya ethnic in Sabah. The current speakers of Tatana identify themselves as an ethnic subgroup of the
Dusun
Dusun is the collective name of a tribe or ethnic and linguistic group in the Malaysian state of Sabah of North Borneo. Collectively, they form the largest ethnic group in Sabah. Dusun has been recognised as among the indigenous community of ...
people of Borneo. Jason Lobel (2013:360) classifies Tatana (along with
Papar) as
Murutic rather than
Dusunic.
References
*Lobel, Jason William. 2013
''Philippine and North Bornean languages: issues in description, subgrouping, and reconstruction'' Ph.D. dissertation. Manoa: University of Hawai'i at Manoa.
Further reading
*
Murutic languages
Languages of Sabah
Languages of Malaysia
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