Kelabit language
| Kelabit | |
|---|---|
| Region | Borneo |
Native speakers | (5,000 cited 2000–2011)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | kzi |
| Glottolog | kela1258 |
Kelabit is one of the remotest languages of Borneo, on the Sarawak–Kalimantan border, and spoken by one of the smallest ethnicities in Borneo, the Kelabit people.
Kelabit is notable for having "a typologically rare series of true voiced aspirates" along with modally voiced and tenuis consonants but without an accompanying series of voiceless aspirates.[2] [3] It is the only language known to have this phonation contrast, which has been reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European. (See glottalic theory.)
References
- ^ Kelabit at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ Robert Blust, 1974. A double counter-universal in Kelabit. Papers in Linguistics :309-24.
- ^ Robert Blust, 2006, "The Origin of the Kelabit Voiced Aspirates: A Historical Hypothesis Revisited", Oceanic Linguistics 45:311
External links
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