Berawan language

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title: "Berawan language" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["languages-of-brunei", "berawan–lower-baram-languages", "languages-of-malaysia", "endangered-austronesian-languages"] description: "Austronesian language spoken in Sarawak, Malaysia" topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berawan_language" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Austronesian language spoken in Sarawak, Malaysia ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox language"]

Field	Value
name	Berawan
region	Sarawak, Malaysia
speakers	3,600
date	2010
ref	e18
familycolor	Austronesian
fam2	Malayo-Polynesian
fam3	North Bornean
fam4	North Sarawakan
fam5	Berawan–Lower Baram
lc1	zbc
lc2	zbe
lc3	zbw
lc4	lod
glotto	bera1264
glottorefname	Berawan
::

|name=Berawan |region=Sarawak, Malaysia |speakers=3,600 |date=2010 |ref=e18 |familycolor=Austronesian |fam2 = Malayo-Polynesian |fam3 = North Bornean |fam4 = North Sarawakan |fam5 = Berawan–Lower Baram |lc1=zbc |ld1=Central |lc2=zbe |ld2=East |lc3=zbw |ld3=West |lc4=lod |ld4=inclusive (deprecated in 2008) |glotto=bera1264 |glottorefname=Berawan

Berawan is an Austronesian language spoken in eastern Sarawak, Malaysia.

Dialects

1. Lakiput
2. Narom
3. Lelak
4. Dali
5. Miri long teran
6. Belait
7. Tutong
8. Long Terawan
9. Long Tutoh
10. Mulu Caves

Distribution

1. Baram (Tutoh-Tinjar)
2. Batu Bela (Sungai Merah / Lower Tutoh)
3. Long Terawan (Middle Tutoh)
4. Long Teru (Lower Tinjar)
5. Long Jegan (Middle Tinjar)
6. Long Teran
7. Long Tabing
8. Long Takong
9. Loagan Bunut National Park
10. Long Patan
11. Long Palo (Tutoh)
12. Long Kuk

Reconstruction

Proto-Berawan is the reconstructed proto-language of all Berawan language varieties. Its phonology has been extensively reconstructed by Jürgen M. Burkhardt in 2014.

Sound changes from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian

;Severe limitations on antepenult syllables All preantepenult syllables were lost in Proto-Berawan: *kalapani *ləpineʔ metathesised *pəlineʔ 'swallow (bird)'. Following this stage, all vowels in antepenult syllables were neutralised into *ə: *tinaʔi *tənaʔeʔ 'small intestines'.

;Vowel changes in penult syllables The vowel i, when preceding a vowel, inserted a glide in between, followed by other developments (*-iy-* *-iyy- *-əyy- **-əjj-*). Meanwhile, *ə largely did not change during Proto-Berawan stage, but it geminated the following consonant (*pənuq *pənno 'full'). The only exceptions were in word-initial position, in two words changed early into *a (*əzan, *əmbaw *acciən 'notched log ladder', *appiəw 'high'), while in two others simply deleted it (*əpat, *əsuŋ *pat 'four', *coŋ 'rice mortar').

When following other consonants, *a remains, but when following voiced (*b, *β, *d, *z, *g) or palatal (*j, *ñ, *y) consonants, it became *i instead (*batu *bittoh 'stone', *ia *jiəh '(s)he/it'). The consonant *l did not block the raising (*balu *billoh 'widow').

References

Bibliography

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::