The Kedayan (also known as Kadayan, KadaianorKadyan) are an ethnic group residing in Brunei, Federal Territory of Labuan, southwest of Sabah, and north of Sarawak on the island of Borneo.[1][2] According to the Language and Literature Bureau of Brunei, the Kedayan language (ISO 639-3: kxd) is spoken by about 30,000 people in Brunei,[3] and it has been claimed that there are a further 46,500 speakers in Sabah and 37,000 in Sarawak.[4][5][6] In Sabah, the Kedayan mainly live in the southern districts of Sipitang and Beaufort, where they are counted as a part of the local Malay populace (and they are often considered as Bruneians owing to assimilation as well as mixed marriage factors).[4][7] Whilst in Sarawak, the Kedayans mostly reside in the towns of Lawas, Limbang and Miri (especially the Subis area).[4]
The origins of the Kedayans are uncertain. Some of them believe their people were originally from Ponorogo, Java,[1] which they left during the reign of Sultan Bolkiah. Because of his fame as a sea captain and voyager, the Sultan was well-known to the people of Java, Sumatra and the Philippines.[1] It is believed that when the Sultan arrived to the island of Java, he became interested in the local agricultural techniques.[1] He brought some of the Javanese farmers back to his country to spread their techniques. The farmers inter-married with the local Bruneian Malay people, giving birth to the Kedayan ethnicity.[1] Most Kedayans have adopted Islam since the Islamic era of the Sultanate of Brunei. They have also adopted Malay culture.[6] The Kedayans are recognized as one of the indigenous people of Borneo.[8] They are experts in making traditional medicines. The Kedayans are well known for their cultivation of medicinal plants, which they grow to treat a wide range of ailments and to make tonics.[4]
The language of one of the indigenous tribes, the Banjar peopleinKutai, East Kalimantan, Indonesia, is said to share more than 90% of the vocabulary with the Kedayan language, despite the fact that the Banjarese do not refer to themselves as Kedayans.[citation needed] Both the Kedayans and the Banjarese are related, to a certain extent, because of the similarities in their languages.[9]
The Kedayan language is similar to Brunei Malay, and it has been claimed that as many as 94% of the words in the two languages are cognate.[10]
The main differences in pronunciation are that Kedayan has initial /h/ while Brunei Malay does not, so Kedayan hutan (forest) is utan in Brunei Malay;[11] and Kedayan does not have /r/, so Malay rumah (house) is umah in Kedayan.[12]
^Shiv Shanker Tiwary & Rajeev Kumar (2009). Encyclopaedia of Southeast Asia and Its Tribes, Volume 1. Anmol Publications. p. 216. ISBN978-81-261-3837-1.
^Nothofer, B. (1991). The languages of Brunei Darussalam. In H. Steinhuaer (Ed.), Papers in Austronesian Linguistics (pp. 151–176). Canberra: Australian National University.
^Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka Brunei (2011). Daftar Leksikal 7 Dialek. Berakas: Dewan dan Pustaka Brunei.
^Faahirah, R., & Deterding, D. (2019). The pronunciation of Kedayan, South East Asia: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 19, 78–85. On-line Version
Brunei
Malaysia (Sabah, Sarawak & Federal Territory of Labuan)
Sunni Muslim
Society
