Kendayan, or Salako (Selako), is a
Malayic
The Malayic languages are a branch of the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup of the Austronesian language family. The most prominent member is Malay, which is the national language of Brunei, Singapore and Malaysia; it further serves as basis for Ind ...
Dayak language of Borneo. The exact number of speakers remains unknown, but is estimated to be around 350,000.
[Thomas, Joseph, J. B. Mangunsudarsono, Hery Suryatman and Abdussamad. 1985. ''Morfologi kata kerja bahasa Kendayan''. Jakarta: Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengembangan Bahasa (Departmenen Pedidikan dan Kebudayan)]
The name ''Kendayan'' is preferred in
Kalimantan, Indonesia, and ''Salako'' in
Sarawak
Sarawak (; ) is a state of Malaysia. The largest among the 13 states, with an area almost equal to that of Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak is located in northwest Borneo Island, and is bordered by the Malaysian state of Sabah to the northeast, ...
, Malaysia. It is sometimes referred to as , particularly in
Bengkayang Regency and the areas near Singkawang City.
Other dialects of Kendayan include Ahe, Banana and ''Belangin.'' Speakers of any of the dialects can understand speakers of any of the others.
Language context
Salako is spoken in the state of Sarawak in Malaysia and the province of West Kalimantan in Indonesia.
There are speakers in Sambas and Bengkayang Regencies and in Singkawang. Other dialects are spoken in the Pontianak, Bengkawang and Landak Regencies of West Kalimantan.
It is said that Singkawang in southern Sambas is the place of origin of Salako speakers.
Dialects spoken in West Kalimantan have been influenced by the
Indonesian, which is the national language of
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
. This is the language used in official contexts, schools, the media and in church.
In Sarawak, the influence of Malay has been less significant, as it became the national language more recently.
Kendayan is a vital language that is used in the community and at home. The Ahe variety is also spoken as a
lingua franca among Dayak speakers.
However, younger speakers are typically educated through Indonesian away from the villages, which could affect language vitality in the future.
Comparison with other neighbouring languages
References
Further reading
* Adelaar, K. Alexander. 2005.
Salako or Badamea: Sketch Grammar, Text and Lexicon of a Kanayatn Dialect in West Borneo'. (Frankfurter Forschungen zu Südostasien, 2.) Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
* Alexander Adelaar. 2006
Where does Belangin belong? In Fritz Schulze and Holger Warnk (eds.), ''Insular Southeast Asia: Linguistic and cultural studies in Honour of
Bernd Nothofer'', 65–84. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
* Burkhardt, Jey Lingam. 2007
Group interaction patterns as observed in informal learning events among pre-literate/semi-literate Salako women
* Dunselman, Donatus. 1949, 1949, 1950. ''Bijdrage tot de kennis van de taal en adat der Kendajan Dajaks van West-Borneo''. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië 105, 105, 106
59–105147–218321–371
* Hermann, Paulus. 1988. A contrastive study on Kendayan and English consonants for the prediction of pronunciation difficulties. MA Thesis, Department of English, Faculty of Arts and Letters, Teaching Training College (IKIP), Yogyakarta.
* Hudson, Alfred B. 1970. A Note on Selako: Malayic Dayak and Land Dayak Languages in Western Borneo. ''Sarawak Museum Journal'' 18. 301–318.
* Lansau, Donatos. 1981. ''Struktur bahasa Kendayan''. Jakarta: Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengemban gan Bahasa, Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan.
* Joseph, Thomas. 1984. ''Morfologi dan sintaksis bahasa Kendayan''. Jakarta: Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengemban gan Bahasa, Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan.
* Sukamto. 1993. ''Tata bahasa Kendayan''. Jakarta: Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengemban gan Bahasa, Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan.
External links
Portions of the Book of Common Prayer
for Salako speakers, digitized by Richard Mammana and Charles Wohlers
{{Austronesian languages
Ibanic languages
Languages of Malaysia
Languages of Indonesia
Agglutinative languages