Brunei Malay

Brunei Malay (Melayu Brunei), or Kedayan (Kadaian), sometimes conflated as Brunei-Kadaian, is the national language of Brunei and a lingua franca in parts of East Malaysia.^[2] It is not the official language of Brunei, which is standard Malay, but is socially dominant and is replacing minority languages. It is quite divergent from standard Malay and is mostly mutually unintelligible with it.

Dialects are Brunei Malay, Kedayan, and Kampong Ayer, which are all close. The name Brunei Malay is used for the numerically and politically dominant Brunei people, who traditionally lived on water. Kedayan is the used for the land-dwelling farmers, and Kampong Ayer is used for the inhabitants of the river in and north of the capital.^[3][4]

Brunei Malay has a three-vowel system, with the merger of /a/ and /ə/. Final /k/ is released, and there is a non-phonemic glottal stop at the ends of vowel-final words.

Examples

• "Dia atu bini-bini." = She is a lady.
• "Sudah ko makan?" = Have you eaten?
• Tekaduhung kitani kemari ani baiktah tarus makan saja sini = Since we're here, we might as well have lunch here too
• "Awda mendapat cabutan bertuah" = You received a lucky draw.

• "Awda/Ko" = You
• "Bini-bini" = lady ("bini" is also used in Malaysian Malay, bini however means wife. However in Malaysian and Singaporean Malay, this is not considered a polite word either refer to someone's wife or to refer to one's own wife to friends, relatives, strangers etc. In Malaysia and Singapore, the word ' isteri ' is used in polite company. 'Orang Rumah' is also acceptable, the term literally means ' Person of the House'. In Indonesia, 'isteri' is used. )
• "Baiktah" ("Baik saja" in Malay) = might as well
• "tarus" = straight ahead, immediately
• "Kitani" = We ( might be corrupted from ' Kita Ini ' - meaning ' Us Here ' in Malay )
• "Karang" = later

References