Kĕnaboi is an extinct unclassified language of

Negeri Sembilan Negeri Sembilan (, Negeri Sembilan Malay: ''Nogoghi Sombilan'', ''Nismilan'') is a state in Malaysia which lies on the western coast of Peninsular Malaysia. It borders Selangor on the north, Pahang in the east, and Malacca and Johor to the s ...

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

that may be a

language isolate Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The nu ...

or an

Austroasiatic The Austroasiatic languages , , are a large language family in Mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. These languages are scattered throughout parts of Thailand, Laos, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and southern China and are t ...

language belonging to the

Aslian The Aslian languages () are the southernmost branch of Austroasiatic languages spoken on the Malay Peninsula. They are the languages of many of the '' Orang Asli'', the aboriginal inhabitants of the peninsula. The total number of native speakers ...

branch. It is attested in what appears to be two dialects, based on word lists of about 250 lexical items, presumably collected around 1870–90.

Background

Walter William Skeat Walter William Skeat, (21 November 18356 October 1912) was a British philologist and Anglican deacon. The pre-eminent British philologist of his time, he was instrumental in developing the English language as a higher education subject in t ...

and Charles Otto Blagden's 1906 work "Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula", the contents of three previously unpublished wordlists appear, two of which were collected by D.F.A. Hervey, a former government official in Malacca. There is no indication as to when these word lists were collected; however, there is a possibility that these wordlists were collected around the 1870s to 1890s. Hervey collected his Kenaboi lexicon in

Alor Gajah ) , pushpin_map = Malaysia Malacca#Malaysia West , pushpin_mapsize = 300px , map_caption = Alor Gajah Town in Alor Gajah District (left)Alor Gajah District in Malacca State (right) , subdivision_type = Country , subd ...

Melaka Malacca ( ms, Melaka) is a state in Malaysia located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, next to the Strait of Malacca. Its capital is Malacca City, dubbed the Historic City, which has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site si ...

from speakers living in Gunung Dato',

Rembau District The Rembau District is a district that is located in the state of Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. The district is a stronghold of the matrilineal system known as '' adat perpatih'', a customary practice inherited from the Minangkabaus, of Sumatra. Th ...

, which is a small inland mountainous area in southern

. Based on the ethnonym, the Kenaboi may have originated from the Kenaboi River valley of

Jelebu District The Jelebu District ( Negeri Sembilan Malay: ''Jolobu'') is the second largest district in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia after Jempol, with a population over 40,000. Jelebu borders on the Seremban District to its west and Kuala Pilah District to ...

, northern Negeri Sembilan (Hajek 1998). Today, the Orang Asli of Negeri Sembilan are primarily

Temuan The Temuan people ( Temuan: ''Uwang/Eang Temuan'', Malaysian: ''Orang Temuan'') are a Proto-Malay ethnic group indigenous to western parts of Peninsular Malaysia. They can be found in the states of Selangor, Pahang, Johor, Negeri Sembilan and Mala ...

speakers.

Classification

John Hajek (1998) proposes that Kenaboi is a mixed language of both

and

Austronesian Austronesian may refer to: *The Austronesian languages *The historical Austronesian peoples The Austronesian peoples, sometimes referred to as Austronesian-speaking peoples, are a large group of peoples in Taiwan, Maritime Southeast Asia, M ...

origins, with Kenaboi (dialect 1) having a higher proportion of Austroasiatic words than Kenaboi (dialect 2). Kenaboi (dialect 1) also has many words of unknown origin, such as 'white' and 'water'. Hajek (1998) speculates that the lexical aberrancy of Kenaboi 1 may due to the fact that Kenaboi 1 was a special taboo language, while Kenaboi 2 was the regular non-taboo language. The lexicon of Kenaboi 1 is 47% Austroasiatic, 27% Austronesian, and 26% unclassified out of a total of 216 words. Hammarström, et al. note in

Glottolog ''Glottolog'' is a bibliographic database of the world's lesser-known languages, developed and maintained first at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany (between 2015 and 2020 at the Max Planck Institute fo ...

that Kenaboi is best considered to be a

, and do not consider arguments of Kenaboi as a taboo-jargon (

argot A cant is the jargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group.McArthur, T. (ed.) ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (1992) Oxford University Press It may also be called a cryptolect, argot ...

) to be convincing. Skeat and Blagden (1906) considers Kenaboi as an isolate unrelated to Austroasiatic and Austronesian. Rasa, another extinct language documented in Skeat & Blagden (1906) near Rasa in

Ulu Selangor Hulu Selangor is a district in Selangor, Malaysia. It contains the towns of Serendah, Batang Kali and Kuala Kubu Bharu. Its principal town is Kuala Kubu Bharu. The district is located in the northeastern part of Selangor and borders the state ...

, also has many words of uncertain origin (Phillips 2012: 257-258).

Notes

References

* * *

Background

Classification

See also

Notes

References

Further reading