Social:Jakun language

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Short description: Malayic language spoken in Malaysia
Jakun
Orang Hulu
Native toMalaysia
RegionJohor, Pahang
Ethnicity25,000 (2008)[1]
Austronesian
  • Malayo-Polynesian
    • Malayic
      • Jakun
Dialects
  • Eastern Johor
  • Western Johor
  • Pahang?
Unwritten
Language codes
ISO 639-3jak
Glottologjaku1244[2]
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Jakun is a Malayic language spoken in Malaysia. Specifically it is spoken on the east coast and inland of Peninsular Malaysia, around the Pairang River, from Pekan in Pahang to Sri Gading, east to Benut, northwest to middle Muar River area around the districts of Segamat, Muar and Tangkak in Johor.[3]

The language is native to the Jakun tribe belonging to the Proto-Malay branch of the indigenous natives of Malaysia, the Orang Asli.

Dialects

The Jakun language can, at the very least, be divided into two dialects: the Western Johor dialect, and the Eastern Johor dialect. They differ in mainly two aspects, pronunciation and vocabulary.[4] In terms of pronunciation, the two dialects differ in that instances of final [-aC] in the Western Johor dialect correspond to [-ɔC] in the Eastern Johor dialect. For example, compare Western Johor [a.naʔ] 'child' and [ta.ŋan] 'hand' to Eastern Johor [a.nɔʔ] and [ta.ŋɔn].[5] Dialectal differences in the lexicon can be seen in the vocabulary section below.

A possible distinct Pahang dialect is reported to exist, although more research is required to verify this claim.[6]

Phonology

Vowels

The vowel inventory of Jakun consists of eight monophthongs, /a, i, e, ɛ, u, o, ɔ, ə/, and three diphthongs, /aw, aj, oj/.[7]

Monophthongs of Jakun
Front Central Back
Close i u
Close-mid e ə o
Open-mid ɛ ɔ
Open a
Diphthongs of Jakun
Coda /j/ /w/
/a/ /aj/ /aw/
/o/ /oj/

Consonants

The consonant inventory of Jakun consists of 19 consonants as shown in the table below.[8]

Consonants
Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ɲ ŋ
Plosive/
Affricate
voiceless p t tʃ k ʔ
voiced b d dʒ ɡ
Fricative s h
Rhotic r
Lateral l
Approximant w j

Comparison with Proto-Malayic

Jakun displays both innovations and retentions when compared to Proto-Malayic, the reconstructed ancestor language of all Malayic languages. Among its innovations is the loss of Proto-Malayic final *-r in [i.ku] 'tail' and [ti.du] 'sleep' (compare Proto-Malayic *ikur and *tidur). Among its retentions, on the other hand, is its lack of lowering of penultimate *i- in certain words such as [ni.niʔ] 'grandmother' and [li.ba] 'wide' (compare its Standard Malay cognates, nenek and lebar).[9] Jakun also shows a more conservative feature in its retention of Proto-Malayic *h in various positions such as in [ha.jam] 'chicken' and [kə.tu.haʔ] 'leader' (compare Standard Malay ayam and ketua).[10]

Vocabulary

Jakun has a lexical similarity of 92% with Standard Malay.[11] That notwithstanding, Jakun has many unique words with no known cognates in Malay. Below is a non-exhaustive list of such words in the dialects of Jakun as spoken in Johor, in IPA transcription, along with their Standard Malay counterparts for comparison.[12]

Vocabulary Comparison
Western Johor Jakun Eastern Johor Jakun Standard Malay English meaning
1 tunuʔ baka bakar 'to burn'
2 təkɛŋ bənt͡ʃiʔ benci 'to hate'
3 səɲɔp ləsɔʔ senyap 'silent'
4 halaw iŋa halau 'to get rid of'
5 usɛl məsɛl rindu 'to miss' (to long for)

References

Citations

  1. ↑ Jakun language at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) closed access
  2. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds (2017). "Jakun". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/jaku1244. 
  3. ↑ Mohamad Rozi Kasim 2023, p. 141.
  4. ↑ Mohamad Rozi Kasim 2023, p. 151.
  5. ↑ Mohamad Rozi Kasim 2023, p. 161.
  6. ↑ Mohamad Rozi Kasim 2023, pp. 151–154.
  7. ↑ Mohamad Rozi Kasim 2023, pp. 154–155.
  8. ↑ Mohamad Rozi Kasim 2023, p. 155.
  9. ↑ Mohamad Rozi Kasim 2023, pp. 157–159.
  10. ↑ Mohamad Rozi Kasim 2020, pp. 139–142.
  11. ↑ Asmah Haji Omar & Samsur Rijal Yahaya 2018.
  12. ↑ Mohamad Rozi Kasim 2023, p. 160.

Bibliography

Template:Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian languages