Kutai 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 Indo ...

language spoken by 300,000 to 500,000 people. It is the native language of the Kutai people (, Kutai: ''Urang Kutai''), the indigenous ethnic group which lives along the

Mahakam River The Mahakam River (Indonesian: ''Sungai Mahakam'') is third longest and volume discharge river in Borneo after Kapuas River and Barito River, it is located in Kalimantan, Indonesia. It flows from the district of Long Apari in the highlands of ...

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the List of islands by area, third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java Isl ...

, especially in

North Kalimantan North Kalimantan ( id, Kalimantan Utara) is a province of Indonesia. It is located on the northernmost of Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo. North Kalimantan borders the Malaysian states of Sabah to the north and Sarawak t ...

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 ...

. They are the principal population in the regencies of

West Kutai West Kutai Regency ( id, Kabupaten Kutai Barat) is a regency (''kabupaten'') in the Indonesian province of East Kalimantan. It previously covered a much greater area, with a population of 165,091 at the 2010 Census, but in December 2012 the five ...

Kutai Kartanegara Kutai Kartanegara Regency (abbreviated as ''Kukar'') is a regency of East Kalimantan province, Indonesia. It has a land area of 27,263.10 km2 and a water area of 4,097 km2, geographically located between 1°18′40″S and 116°31′36 ...

, and

East Kutai East Kutai Regency ( id, Kabupaten Kutai Timur) is a regency of East Kalimantan province, Indonesia. It has an area of 35,747.50 km2 and had a population of 253,904 at the 2010 census and 434,459 at the 2020 census. The town of Sangatta is th ...

within North Kalimantan province. Kutai is part of the local Bornean Malayic languages and is closely related but distinct to

Banjar language The Banjar or Banjarese (; ) is an Austronesian language predominantly spoken by the Banjarese—an indigenous ethnic group native to Banjar regions— in the southeastern Kalimantan of Indonesia. The Banjarese language is the lingua f ...

South Kalimantan South Kalimantan ( id, Kalimantan Selatan) is a province of Indonesia. It is the smallest province in Kalimantan, the Indonesian territory of Borneo. The provincial capital was Banjarmasin until 15 February 2022 when it was legally moved to B ...

, Berau, also spoken in North Kalimantan and to some extent Brunei-Kedayan Malay as well. Kutai forms a dialect continuum between the two varieties and all three share similar phonology and vocabulary with each other.

Literature

Kutai for most of its history is mainly a spoken language and is mostly used as a form of poetry (''

pantun ''Pantun'' ( Jawi: ) is a Malay oral poetic form used to express intricate ideas and emotions. It is generally consists of even-numbered lines and based on ABAB rhyming schemes. The shortest consists of two lines better known as the in Malay ...

''). During the period of the

Kutai Kartanegara Sultanate Kutai is a historical region in what is now known as East Kalimantan, Indonesia on the island of Borneo and is also the name of the native ethnic group of the region (known as ''Urang Kutai'' or "the Kutai people"), numbering around 300,000 who ...

, most literature was written in

Standard Malay Malaysian Malay ( ms, Bahasa Melayu Malaysia), also known as Standard Malay (Malay: ''Bahasa Melayu Standard''), ( English translation: Malaysian language), or simply Malay, is a standardized form of the Malay language used in Malaysia (as o ...

Jawi script Jawi (; ace, Jawoë; Kelantan-Pattani: ''Yawi''; ) is a writing system used for writing several languages of Southeast Asia, such as Acehnese, Banjarese, Kerinci, Maguindanaon, Malay, Minangkabau, Tausūg, and Ternate. Jawi is based ...

instead of Kutai Malay.

Dialects

Kutai, as with many Malay varieties on the island, is a dialect continuum. A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a spread of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighbouring varieties differ only slightly, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varieties are not mutually intelligible. There are three principal dialects of Kutai Malay language; all three have little

mutual intelligibility In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as a ...

with each other due to the geographical proximity of these dialects. The three main dialects are Tenggarong, Kota Bangun, and Ancalong Estuary.

References

Languages of Indonesia Agglutinative languages Malay dialects {{malayic-lang-stub Malayic languages