Melanau language

Melanau
Central Melanau
Native to	Malaysia, Brunei
Region	Sarawak and neighbouring Brunei
Ethnicity	Melanau people
Native speakers	110,000 (2000)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian North Bornean Melanau–Kajang Melanau languages Melanau
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: mel – Central Melanau sdx – Sibu Melanau
Glottolog	cent2101  (Central)[2] sibu1258  (Sibu)[3]

Melanau is an Austronesian language spoken in the coastal area of the Rejang delta on northwest Borneo, Sarawak, Malaysia and Brunei. There are several dialects—Mukah-Oya, Balingian, Bruit, Dalat, Igan, Sarikei, Segahan, Prehan, Segalang, and Siteng.^[4]

Phonology

Consonants

Melanau has the following consonants.^[5]

		Bilabial	Coronal	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Stops and affricates	Voiceless	p	t	tʃ	k		ʔ
	Voiced	b	d	dʒ	ɡ
Fricatives			s				h, hʲ
Nasals		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Lateral			l
Trills			ɲ			ʀ
Semivowels		w		j

Vowels

Melanau has the following vowels.^[5]

	front	central	back rounded
High	i		u
Mid	ɛ	ə	ɔ
Low		ɡ

Notes

1. Central Melanau at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
   Sibu Melanau at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Central Melanau". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
3. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Sibu Melanau". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
4. Raymond G. Gordon, Jr, ed. 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 15th edition. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
5. Clayre 1970.

References

• I.F.C.S. Clayre. 1970. "The Spelling of Melanau (nee Milano)," The Sarawak Museum Journal 18:330-352.
• Rensch, Calvin R. 2012. Melanau and the Languages of Central Sarawak. SIL Electronic Survey Report. SIL International.