Skip to main content

Language

The Kadazan language has adopted several loanwords, particularly from other northern Borneo indigenous languages and also Malay. There are claims that Penampang people speak Kadazan Tangaa' dialect while the Papar people generally speak Kadazan.
The use of the language has been declining due to the use of Malay by the Malaysian federal government and by the use of English by missionaries, which was done through the method of language shift enforced by the work of both the colonial and federal governments. The state of Sabah has introduced policies to prevent this decline, which is also happening to other native Sabahan languages. This included the policy of using Kadazan and other indigenous languages in public schools. Efforts have also been done to allow the language to become official in the state.
In an earlier 2005 Unesco’s report, the Kadazan-Dusun language was classified as an endangered language, spoken by a mere 300,000 people. The language has apparently joined the 7,000+ other languages worldwide that face the threat of extinction.[16]On the bright side, Datuk Philip Lasimbang, Chair of Board of Directors Kadazandusun Language Foundation (KLF) had stated that the Kadazandusun language will never go extinct because it has entered our education system, is formalised and has been institutionalised.[17]
The similarities between the Kadazan and Dusun languages are sufficient for speakers of these two languages to understand each other easily. In a nutshell, the most salient distinction between these two languages are the differences in their phonemic charts.
Kadazan consists of fricatives /v/ and /z/ which are absent in Dusun. On the other hand, /w/, /y/ and /r/ are present in Dusun but not in Kadazan. Kadazan is one of the Austronesianlanguages which extensively employ the voiced alveolar sibilant fricative /z/ in their native lexicons. The other languages for instance, are some of Formosan languages belong to the Taiwanese aborigines.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Music And Dance

The Kadazans have also developed their own unique dance and music.  Sumazau  is the name of the dance between a male and female, performed by couples as well as groups of couples, which is usually accompanied by a symphony of handcrafted bronze gongs that are individually called  tagung . The  sompoton  is another musical instrument. A ceremonial ring of cloth sash is worn by both male and female. The  Sumazau  and gong accompaniment is typically performed during joyous ceremonies and occasions, the most common of which being wedding feasts. The Kadazan have a musical heritage consisting of various types of  tagung  ensembles  - ensembles composed of large hanging, suspended or held, bossed/knobbed  gongs  which act as drone without any accompanying melodic instrument. They also use  kulintangan ensembles  - ensembles with an horizontal-type melodic instrument. [2] [3] The late Chief Priestess Bobohizan, Bianti ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Origin Of The Term Kadazan

While it is widely believed that the term itself was a political derivative that came into existence in the late 1950s to early 1960s, no proper historical record exists pertaining to the origins of the term or its originator. However, an article by Richard Tunggolou [1]  may shed some light. According to Tunggolou, most of the explanations of the meanings and origins of the word ‘Kadazan’ assumed that the word was of recent origin, specifically in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Tunggolou further claimed that some people have theorised that the term originates from the word ‘kakadazan’ (towns) or ‘kedai’ (shops), and from the claim that Kadazan politicians such as the late Datuk Peter J. Mojuntin coined the term. However, there is evidence to suggest that the term has been used long before the 1950s.  Owen Rutter , in his book,  The Pagans Of North Borneo , published in 1929, wrote: “The Dusun usually describes himself generically as a tulun tindal (landsman) or, on t...
Post a Comment
Read more