Abstract
A number of values inform people’s decisions on how to spell their language. Sometimes these values conflict. For example, some may hold strongly to the value that a language should be spelled according to its sound system, while others prioritize the value that their language should be spelled as much as possible like the national language. Both values have been instrumental in shaping the orthography used in West Coast (WC) Bajau [bdr], spoken on the west coast of Sabah, Malaysia. In 2004, a Bajau orthography workshop was held in Kota Kinabalu, involving some 30 WC Bajau leaders and educators. The decisions reached at this workshop have formed the basis of the current WC Bajau orthography. With the publication of the Bajau Sama – Malay – English Basic Dictionary last year (2017), more people are being exposed to the spelling system than perhaps ever before. In the present paper, some of the key features of the WC Bajau orthography will be discussed. These include: the representation of the glottal stop; the representation of the pepet vowel; the use of semivowels (‘y’ and ‘w’) vs vowels (‘i’ and ‘u’) in vowel glides; and the representation of long vowels. We shall consider how the Malay sound system and orthography have influenced the development of the WC Bajau orthography. We shall also examine how the WC Bajau orthography differs from the spelling systems used in other Sama Bajau languages such as Mapun, Central Sama, and Southern Sama, languages which are much more influenced by Filipino/Tagalog than Malay since they are spoken mostly in the Philippines. Keywords: orthography, West Coast Bajau, Mapun, Central Sama, Southern Sama
Highlights
The WC Bajau language and its orthography developmentThe West Coast (WC) Bajau people number approximately 210,000 and are found mostly on the western and northern coasts of Sabah (Simons & Fennig, 2018)
I have introduced some of the key features of the WC Bajau spelling system, ‘key’ because they often involve a clash of values
Of the many values that play into decisions for how to spell a newly written language, we have seen that the value ‘an orthography should be based on the sound system of the language’ has been instrumental in shaping the WC Bajau orthography
Summary
The West Coast (WC) Bajau people number approximately 210,000 and are found mostly on the western and northern coasts of Sabah (Simons & Fennig, 2018). Their cultural homeland is in the area surrounding Kota Belud town, but they have substantial populations in Kota Marudu District to the north, and in Tuaran, Kota Kinabalu, Putatan, and Papar to the south. Subsequent to the workshop, a little booklet was produced which summarised the spelling decisions made during the workshop Using this approved orthography, in 2006 a series of 25 WC Bajau language learning lessons was published by the Sabah State Museum. The question remains whether the present orthography will adequately serve speakers of other varieties of WC Bajau, such as Tuaran or Putatan
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