Kĕnaboi is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

unclassified language of

Negeri Sembilan Negeri Sembilan (, Negeri Sembilan Malay: ''Nogoghi Sombilan'', ''Nismilan''), historically spelled as Negri Sembilan, is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state in Malaysia which lies on the Peninsular Malaysia#Other features, wes ...

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

that may be a

language isolate A language isolate is a language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages. Basque in Europe, Ainu and Burushaski in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, Haida and Zuni in North America, Kanoê in South America, and Tiwi ...

or an

Austroasiatic The Austroasiatic languages ( ) are a large language family spoken throughout Mainland Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia. These languages are natively spoken by the majority of the population in Vietnam and Cambodia, and by minority popu ...

language belonging to the Aslian 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 th ...

and

Charles Otto Blagden Charles Otto Blagden (6September 186425August 1949) was an English Oriental studies, Orientalist and Linguistics, linguist who specialised in the Malay language, Malay, Mon language, Mon and Pyu language (Burma), Pyu languages. He is particula ...

's 1906 work "Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula", the contents of three previously unpublished wordlists appear, two of which were collected by D.F.A. Hervey, a former government official in Malacca.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,

Malacca Malacca (), officially the Historic State of Malacca (), is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state in Malaysia located in the Peninsular Malaysia#Other features, southern region of the Malay Peninsula, facing the Strait of Malacca ...

from speakers living in Gunung Dato', which is a mountain situated in

Rembau District The Rembau District () is a Districts of Malaysia, 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 Mi ...

, southern

. Based on the ethnonym, the Kenaboi may have originated from the Kenaboi River valley of Jelebu District, northern Negeri Sembilan (Hajek 1998). Today, the

Orang Asli The Orang Asli are a Homogeneity and heterogeneity, heterogeneous Indigenous peoples, indigenous population forming a national minority in Malaysia. They are the oldest inhabitants of Peninsular Malaysia. As of 2017, the Orang Asli accounted f ...

of Negeri Sembilan are primarily Temuan speakers.

Classification

John Hajek (1998) proposes that Kenaboi is a mixed language of both Aslian and Austronesian 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 an open-access online bibliographic database of the world's languages. In addition to listing linguistic materials ( grammars, articles, dictionaries) describing individual languages, the database also contains the most up-to-d ...

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, argo ...

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

Notes

References

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Background

Classification

See also

Notes

References

Further reading