A preliminary study of Bahasa Orang Seletar

Abstract

Southeast Asia is home to the Orang Laut. Orang Laut literally translates to sea people. Some research has been done on the various groups of Orang Laut and the languages they speak. However, there are several known groups of Orang Laut whose languages are undocumented. The Orang Seletar is one such group. This paper addresses this gap through fieldwork on the Orang Seletar's language. The Orang Seletar language is also known as Bahasa Orang Seletar. Orang Seletar language consultants provided three sets language data. Data includes a 210-word basic austronesian Swadesh list, sentences elicited from a man and tree picture stimuli set, and a short conversation between two Orang Seletar. Bahasa Orang Seletar has a large sound system of 36 phones comprising 17 consonant phones and 19 vowel phones. The basic syllable structure is (C)(C)V(C). Bahasa Orang Seletar language is a relative Isolating-Monocategorical-Associational language. Association of the constituents present and context are important for meaning-making in this language. Hence, a pragmatics approach was used to describe the morphology and syntax of Bahasa Orang Seletar. Further research is necessary to better understand Bahasa Orang Seletar's language system.