Biatah language

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Wikipedia

Biatah
Native toMalaysia
RegionBorneo
EthnicityBidayuh
Native speakers
(72,000 cited 2000)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3bth
Glottologbiat1246

The Biatah language is spoken in the Malaysian state of Sarawak and the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan. It belongs to the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family.

Phonology

Consonants

Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Plosive/
Affricate		 voiceless p t (t͡ʃ) k ʔ
voiced b d d͡ʒ g
Fricative s h
Nasal m n ɲ ŋ
Trill r
Approximant w (l) j
  • [t͡ʃ] and [l] are heard in other dialects.

Vowels

Front Central Back
Close i ɨ u
Mid e ə o
Open a ɔ
  • /i, u, e, o/ can have allophones of [ɪ, ʊ, ɛ, ɔ].[2][3]

References

  1. ↑ Biatah at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ↑ Darmansyah, Durdje Durasid; Sari, Nirmala (1994). Morfologi dan sintaksis bahasa Bedayuh. Jakarta: Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengembangan Bahasa, Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan.
  3. ↑ Topping (1993)
  • Topping, Donald M. A Dialect Survey of the Land Dayaks of Sarawak, Language and Oral Traditions in Borneo. 1993. Selected Papers from the First Extraordinary Conference of The Borneo Research Council, Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia, August 4–9, 1990, pp. 247–274