The term Mendawai refers to an ethnic group and their language which is located in the town of Pangkalanbun. Pangkalanbun is the administrative center of kabupaten Kotawaringin Barat (Central Kalimantan) and was the seat of court of the Kotawaringin kingdom. The Mendawai community is Muslim, like their Malay neighbors, but culturally they see their roots with the Dayak people.
The Mendawai language has received little attention so far in linguistic research. Not only Mendawai, but many other closely related lects (e.g. Pembuang) have been simply overlooked, or subsumed as variants of the dominant local Malayic langauges. Although Mendawai is heavily influenced lexically by Banjar and other Malayic lects, its basic fundament is clearly non-Malayic, and rather related to Ngaju, Bakumpai and other Dayak languages of the southern branch of the so-called "West Barito" subgroup of Austronesian languages.
The strong influence of Banjar is seen in such basic expressions such as kuman nasi "eat rice" and mihup banyu "drink water". The verbs kuman and mihup are also found in Ngaju etc., whereas the nouns nasi and banyu are of Banjar origin.
"eat rice"
"drink water"
In spite of the strong lexical impact of Banjar on Mendawai, it is basically unintelligible to Banjar speakers. Even for Ngaju speakers, many of which also speak Banjar as a language of wider regional communication, Mendawai is barely intelligible, since some of the basic vocabulary including functors are completely different.
The following examples shall give an impression of some distinct features of Mendawai:
"there is"
"there is not"
"not"
"what"
"why"
"where"
"where to"
"big"
"morning"
"buy"
passive prefix
third person possessive
The sentence E'en yang nyengkiriya te? ("What did she buy?") is completely incomprehensible to Ngaju speakers, cf. the corresponding sentence in Ngaju: Narai je mili ah te?
Several of these features are not restricted to Mendawai, but are also found in closely related Pembuang (spoken in the neighbouring kabupaten Seruyan), such as mida, humbui, e'en or -ya.
A particular phonetic feature is the weakening of the vowel /a/ to [ə] in antepenult syllable, which can be attributed to the influence of the local, coastal variant of Malay. Mendawai thus has i.e. mənduan "take" where all other related lects from Pembuang to Ngaju have manduan.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
The Mendawai language has received little attention so far in linguistic research. Not only Mendawai, but many other closely related lects (e.g. Pembuang) have been simply overlooked, or subsumed as variants of the dominant local Malayic langauges. Although Mendawai is heavily influenced lexically by Banjar and other Malayic lects, its basic fundament is clearly non-Malayic, and rather related to Ngaju, Bakumpai and other Dayak languages of the southern branch of the so-called "West Barito" subgroup of Austronesian languages.
The strong influence of Banjar is seen in such basic expressions such as kuman nasi "eat rice" and mihup banyu "drink water". The verbs kuman and mihup are also found in Ngaju etc., whereas the nouns nasi and banyu are of Banjar origin.
Ngaju
kuman bari
mihop danum
kuman bari
mihop danum
Mendawai
kuman nasi
mihup banyu
kuman nasi
mihup banyu
Banjar
makan nasi
minum banyu
makan nasi
minum banyu
"eat rice"
"drink water"
In spite of the strong lexical impact of Banjar on Mendawai, it is basically unintelligible to Banjar speakers. Even for Ngaju speakers, many of which also speak Banjar as a language of wider regional communication, Mendawai is barely intelligible, since some of the basic vocabulary including functors are completely different.
The following examples shall give an impression of some distinct features of Mendawai:
Ngaju
tege
jatun
dia
narai
mbuhen
intu kueh
kan kueh
hai
hanjewu
mamili
i-
-ah
tege
jatun
dia
narai
mbuhen
intu kueh
kan kueh
hai
hanjewu
mamili
i-
-ah
Mendawai
ada
mida
humbui
e'en
emen
ting isen
ji isen
datuh
susung
mengkiri
nye-
-ya
ada
mida
humbui
e'en
emen
ting isen
ji isen
datuh
susung
mengkiri
nye-
-ya
"there is"
"there is not"
"not"
"what"
"why"
"where"
"where to"
"big"
"morning"
"buy"
passive prefix
third person possessive
The sentence E'en yang nyengkiriya te? ("What did she buy?") is completely incomprehensible to Ngaju speakers, cf. the corresponding sentence in Ngaju: Narai je mili ah te?
Several of these features are not restricted to Mendawai, but are also found in closely related Pembuang (spoken in the neighbouring kabupaten Seruyan), such as mida, humbui, e'en or -ya.
A particular phonetic feature is the weakening of the vowel /a/ to [ə] in antepenult syllable, which can be attributed to the influence of the local, coastal variant of Malay. Mendawai thus has i.e. mənduan "take" where all other related lects from Pembuang to Ngaju have manduan.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
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