Biatah language
| Biatah | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Malaysia |
| Region | Borneo |
| Ethnicity | Bidayuh |
Native speakers | 72,000 (2000)[1] |
Austronesian
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | bth |
| Glottolog | biat1246 |
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
- ^ Biatah at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ Darmansyah, Durdje Durasid; Sari, Nirmala (1994). Morfologi dan sintaksis bahasa Bedayuh. Jakarta: Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengembangan Bahasa, Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan.
- ^ 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
