Maanyan or Maʼanyan (also ''Maanjan'' or ''Maanyan Dayak'') is an Austronesian language belonging to the

East Barito languages The East Barito languages are a group of a dozen Dayak ( Austronesian) languages of Borneo, Indonesia, and most notably Malagasy, the national language of Madagascar. They are named after the Barito River located in Central and South Kaliman ...

. It is spoken by about 150,000

Ma'anyan people Ma'anyan (colonial spelling Maanjan or Meanjan), Dayak Maanyan or Eastern Barito Dayak people are an ethnic group of the Dayak people indigenous to Borneo. They are also considered as part of the east Barito Dusun group with the name Dusun Ma'an ...

(one of the

Dayak people The Dayak (; older spelling: Dajak) or Dyak or Dayuh are the native groups of Borneo. It is a loose term for over 200 riverine and hill-dwelling ethnic groups, located principally in the central and southern interior of Borneo, each with its ...

s) living in the province of

Central Kalimantan Central Kalimantan () is a provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia. It is one of five provinces in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo. It is the largest province in Indonesia by area since 2022, bordered by West Kalimantan to the west ...

and

South Kalimantan South Kalimantan () is a Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia. It is the second most populous province on the island of Kalimantan, the Indonesian territory of the island of Borneo after West Kalimantan. The provincial capital was Banjar ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

. It is most closely related to the

Malagasy language Malagasy ( ; ; Sorabe: ) is an Austronesian languages, Austronesian language and dialect continuum spoken in Madagascar. The standard variety, called Official Malagasy, is one of the official languages of Madagascar, alongside French language, F ...

spoken in

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

, although these languages are not mutually intelligible due to the geographical separation.

Connection with Malagasy

The Malagasy language is an Austronesian language spoken in Madagascar, originating from its historical homeland in South East

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 ...

. Malagasy is classified among the Southeast

Barito languages The Barito languages are around twenty Austronesian languages of Indonesia (Borneo), plus Malagasy, the national language of Madagascar, and the Sama–Bajaw languages around the Sulu Archipelago. They are named after the Barito River located ...

, and Ma'anyan is often listed as its closest relative, with Malagasy incorporating numerous Malay and Javanese loanwords. It is known that

were brought as labourers and slaves by Malay and Javanese people in their trading fleets, which reached Madagascar by ca. 50–500 AD. There is high lexical similarity with other East Barito languages like Paku (77%) and Dusun Witu (75%). It is likely that the Malagasy had already acquired a separate ethnic and linguistic identity in South Borneo prior to their migration(s) to East Africa. Based on linguistic evidence, it has been suggested that the early Malagasy migrants moved away from Borneo in the 7th century AD, if not later. Compared to Malagasy, Ma’anyan is characterized by a "West Indonesian" (Malay-type) morphosyntactic structure, a consequence of the long-standing influence of Malay on the languages of western Indonesia. While Malagasy is closer to the so-called “Philippine-type structure” (resembling many of the languages of the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

Sabah Sabah () is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia located in northern Borneo, in the region of East Malaysia. Sabah has land borders with the Malaysian state of Sarawak to the southwest and Indonesia's North Kalima ...

North Sulawesi North Sulawesi () is a Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia. It is mainly located on the Minahasa Peninsula of the island of Sulawesi, south of the Philippines and southeast of Sabah, Malaysia, but also includes various small archipel ...

, and

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

), it is also very innovative phonologically, perhaps as a result of its common phonological history with

Comorian languages Comorian (''Shikomori'', or ''Shimasiwa'', the "language of islands") is the name given to a group of four Bantu languages spoken in the Comoro Islands, an archipelago in the southwestern Indian Ocean between Mozambique and Madagascar. It is name ...

Phonology

Consonants

can also be heard as a tap sound .

Vowels

can be heard as in closed syllables.

Vocabulary

Vocabulary comparison between Malay, Banjarese, Ma'anyan, and Malagasy.

References

External links

Ma'anyan language and grammar
(in Ma'anyan) {{DEFAULTSORT:Ma'anyan language East Barito languages Languages of Indonesia