Tutong language
The Tutong language, also known as Tutong 2, is a language spoken by approximately 17,000 people in Brunei. It is the main language of the Tutong people, the majority ethnic group in the Tutong District of Brunei.
Tutong | |
---|---|
Tutong 2 | |
Region | Brunei |
Native speakers | 17,000 (2006)[1] |
Austronesian
| |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | ttg |
Glottolog | tuto1241 |
Classification
Tutong is an Austronesian language and belongs to the Rejang-Baram group of languages spoken in Brunei as well as Kalimantan, Indonesia, and Sarawak, Malaysia.[2] Tutong is related to the Belait language and roughly 54% of the words come from a common root.[3]
Language use
Today, many speakers of Tutong are shifting away from the traditional language and code-mix or code-shift with Brunei Malay, Standard Malay and English.[4] The language has been given a vitality rating of 2.5 based on a scale of 0-6 that uses the measures of the rate of transmission to future generations, the level of official support, and the geographical concentration of speakers.[2][5] This means it is considered endangered.
Nonetheless, there is interest in revitalizing the language. Since 2012, a module has been taught in Tutong at Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD).[6] Similarly, the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (Brunei's Language Agency) published a Tutong-Malay, Malay-Tutong dictionary in 1991 and a word list of several Brunei languages in 2011.[2][6]
Resources
- Haji Ramlee Tunggal. 2005. Struktur Bahasa Tutong. Bandar Seri Begawan: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka Brunei.
- Noor Azam OKMB Haji-Othman. 2005. Changes in the linguistic diversity of Negara Brunei Darussalam: An ecological perspective. Leicester: University of Leicester dissertation.
References
- Tutong at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- Martin, Peter W. (1995). "Whiter the Indigenous Languages of Brunei Darussalam?". Oceanic Linguistics. 34 (1): 27. doi:10.2307/3623110.
- Nothofer, Bernd. 1991 . The languages of Brunei Darussalam. In H. Steinhauer (ed.) Papers in Austronesian Linguistics. Pacific Linguistics A-81:1
- Clynes, Adrian. "Dominant Language Transfer in Minority Language Documentation Projects: Some Examples from Brunei". Language Documentation and Conservation. 6: 253–267. hdl:10125/4539.
- Coluzzi, Paolo (2010). "Endangered Languages in Borneo: A Survey among the Iban and Murut (Lun Bawang) in Temburong, Brunei". Oceanic Linguistics. 49 (1): 119–143. doi:10.1353/ol.0.0063.
- McLellan, James (2014). "Strategies for revitalizing endangered Borneo languages: A comparison between Negara Brunei Darussalam and Sarawak, Malaysia" (PDF). Southeast Asia: A Multidisciplinary Journal. 14: 14–22.