The Kayan–Murik languages are a group of
Austronesian languages
The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken ...
spoken in
Borneo
Borneo () is the List of islands by area, third-largest island in the world, with an area of , and population of 23,053,723 (2020 national censuses). Situated at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, it is one of the Greater Sunda ...
by the
Kayan, Murik, and
Bahau peoples.
Languages
The Kayan–Murik languages include:
*Kayan proper:
Bahau, various languages called ''
Kayan''
*
Murik
Smith (2017, 2019)
Smith (2017, 2019) classifies the Kayanic languages as follows:
*Kayanic
**Kayan–Murik–Merap
***
Kayan
**** Baram
**** Rejang-Busang
****
Bahau
**** Data Dian
***Murik–Merap
****
Ngorek
**** Pua’
**** Huang Bau
****
Merap
Notable sound changes
Glottalisation of final vowels
In all Kayan–Murik languages, final vowels ''*-a'', ''*-i'', and ''*-u'' are closed with a glottal stop (similar to
Banyumasan or Ngapak dialect of Javanese). This process resulted ''-aʔ'', ''-eʔ'', and ''-oʔ'' in most langauges, but two latter outcomes are instead ''-ayʔ'' and ''-awʔ'' in Merap.
However, the Kayan–Murik languages have different treatments regarding syllables ending in ''*-ʔ'' (inherited from
PMP ''*-q''). Data Dian Kayan (DDK) and Bahau lengthen PMP ''*-aq'' into ''-aːʔ'' (but ''-iʔ'' and ''-uʔ''), Busang simply retains the glottal stops without any lengthening, meanwhile, Long Naah Kayan (LNK) and Balui Liko Kayan (BLK) deleted ''*-q'' altogether.
Final voiced stops
Original final voiced stops have been altered to some extent in the Kayan–Murik languages. In LNK and DDK, ''*-b'' and ''*-d'' became nasalised into ''-m'' and ''-n'', respectively (similar to
Karo Batak). Meanwhile, in BLK and Busang, both are lenited into ''-v'' and ''-r''. However, in Bahau, Ngorek, and Merap, the outcomes of final voiced stops are more variable, with ''*-b''
devoiced
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to ref ...
into ''-p'', but ''*-d'' evolved into ''-l'' (Bahau), and then nasalised into ''-n'' (Ngorek and Merap).
Vowel breaking before velar consonants
In DDK, BLK, and additionally Uma Juman Kayan (UJK), vowels ''*a'' and ''*i'' were
broken into ''eə'' and ''iə'', before velar consonnts ''*k'' or ''*ŋ'' (''*anak'' 'child' → ''aneək'').
Outcomes of ''*z'' and ''*s''
In Bahau, PMP ''*s'' was
debuccalised to ''h'' in all positions (eventually merging with the outcome of PMP ''*ʀ''), while ''*z''
chain shift
In historical linguistics, a chain shift is a set of sound changes in which the change in pronunciation of one speech sound (typically, a phoneme) is linked to, and presumably causes, a change in pronunciation of other sounds. The sounds invo ...
ed to ''s''. In other languages, ''*s'' was only debuccalised in initial, or final position; therefore, it is still retained in the medial position (merging with medial ''*-z-''). Meanwhile, initial ''*z-'' became ''j-'' instead in these languages. However, in BLK and Busang, ''*-s'' was further deleted in the final position, but this rule did not apply for ''*-ʀ'', nor the sequence ''*əs'' in Busang. Because of this, Alexander D. Smith speculates that the Proto-Kayanic outcome for PMP ''*z'' is ''*c'', while ''*s'' remains unchanged.
Sequences of nasals and voiced consonants
In most Kayan–Murik languages, such sequences (''*mb'', ''*nd'', ''*nj'', ''*ŋg'') have evolved into ''*b'', ''*d'', ''*j'', ''*g'', by deleting the homorganic nasals. This change followed the lenition of medial ''*-b-'' and ''*-d-'' into ''-v-'' (''-f-'' in DDK and Bahau) and ''-r-'' in Kayan languages. However, in Murik and Merap, they merged with ''*mp'', ''*nt'', ''*nc'', ''*ŋk'', with devoiced plosives.
References
Bibliography
*
External links
*
Kaipuleohone Kaipuleohone is a digital ethnographic archive that houses audio and visual files, photographs, as well as hundreds of textual material such as notes, dictionaries, and transcriptions relating to small and endangered languages. The archive is stored ...
archived materials of Kayan from the
Robert Blust
Robert A. Blust (; zh, c=白樂思, p=Bái Lèsī; May 9, 1940 – January 5, 2022) was an American linguist who worked in several areas, including historical linguistics, lexicography and ethnology. He was Professor of Linguistics at the Uni ...
collection (
RB2-003-A,
RB2-003-C).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kayan-Murik languages
Greater North Borneo languages