Banjarese language


Banjarese or simply Banjar, is an Austronesian language of the Malayic branch predominantly spoken by the Banjarese—an indigenous ethnic group native to Banjar regions— in the southeastern Kalimantan of Indonesia. The Banjarese language is the de facto lingua franca for various indigenous community especially in South Kalimantan, as well as Central Kalimantan and East Kalimantan in general.
Banjarese also has significant population in other provinces in Indonesia, especially in Sumatra even some regencies in Riau has a Banjarese majority population like in Indragiri Hilir Regency.
Apart from the native Banjarese in Indonesia, the Banjarese language also spoken by little Banjarese diaspora abroad Malaysia, ; however, they tend to not use it as their primary language, and their fluency degree is questionable.

Dialects

There are at least two divisions of dialects within the Banjarese language:
  1. Banjar Hulu
  2. Banjar Kuala
According to Cense, the Banjar Hulu dialect are predominantly spoken by Banjarese people in the South Hulu Sungai Regency and North Hulu Sungai Regency regions. Berangas language, a Barito language that is almost extinct in South Kalimantan, also has a close relationship with Banjar Kuala dialect, where it absorbs much of the Banjarese language vocabulary, but lexically it is closer to other Barito languages, especially Bakumpai language.

Phonology

Consonants

The consonantal inventory of Banjarese language is shown below. All but occur at the onset of a syllable:
  • is an allophone of at the end of a word.
  • The following consonants can close a CVC syllable:. Words cannot begin with consonant clusters. Within a root, an NC sequence will always be homorganic, though reduplication and a few prefixes such as sing- can produce other sequences, e.g.. Other medial sequences include and.

    Vowels

Sudarmo finds five monophthongs:
FrontCentralBack
Close
Mid
Open

is an allophone of.
Durasid finds three monophthongs and three diphthongs in Pahuluan Banjarese:
FrontCentralBack
Close
Open

Regionally, has an allophone and has an allophone. The diphthongs are.
Loans with /e/ or /o/ are assimilated to these three vowels. E.g. kréték is realized as. However, since most Banjarese speakers are effectively bilingual, this realization becomes rarer.

Alphabet

The standard alphabet is as follows: