Report of Governor Balthasar Bort on Malacca, 1678. .J. Bremner: with an introd. and notes C.O. Blagden
H. L. E. Luering, a German-born philologist based in Strassburg, published this vocabulary of the Dusun (Kadasan) language of Kimanis in 1897, drawing on fieldwork conducted in 1891 in British North Borneo. The work argues that Kadasan preserves some of the oldest and purest forms of speech in the Malayan language family, positioning it as a key witness to the early separation of Borneo from the western Malay world. The vocabulary itself comprises several hundred entries arranged alphabetically by English gloss, with Dusun and Malay equivalents.
Summary
Luering’s introduction situates the Kadasan language within a broader comparative framework. He proposes that the languages of Borneo proper, the migratory Bajau (Sea Gipsies), and the inhabitants of Buton form one distinct group, intimately related to the Philippine and Sula-Amboyna language groups. All three, he argues, derive from a common source he terms the “Eastern branch of the Malayan family,” as opposed to a Western branch typified by modern Malay. From a comparison of these two branches, he contends, the Proto-Malayan language could eventually be reconstructed, which would in turn illuminate the relationship of Malayan languages to either the Indo-Chinese or Polynesian families (pp. 1–2).
The author provides a detailed phonological example to demonstrate the archaic character of Kadasan. The word for “egg,” antahlok, retains a strongly sounded h before l that all other Malayan languages have discarded at an early period. He traces cognates across Bajau (untello), Bouton (ontolo), Southern Dayak (t-anteloh), the Sula-Amboyna group (e.g., Sula metelo, Liang muntiro), and the Philippine group (Tagalog and Bisaya itlog, Sulu iklog), arguing that the Dusun form represents the fullest and most conservative reflex of the original Eastern Malayan form (pp. 3–4). He further notes that Kadasan possesses a number of fuller verbal and nominal forms compared to Malay, such as sumumpah for Malay sumpah (oath) and sumakit for sakit (sick), and identifies a distinctive intensifying prefix a- before adjectives (e.g., afagat beside fagat, heavy) (p. 4).
The vocabulary proper spans the bulk of the document, presenting English glosses alongside Dusun and Malay equivalents. The entries reveal a substantial core of native Bornean vocabulary alongside a modest layer of borrowings from Malay (e.g., mangkok, bandera, hukum, belajar) and, in a few cases, from Portuguese or Persian via Malay (e.g., pelita, kunchi). The people themselves, Luering notes, call themselves uhlan Kadasan and “utterly deny” the claim, often repeated by European travellers, that they are descended from early Chinese settlers on the Borneo coast (p. 1).
Key Findings
- The Kadasan word for egg, antahlok, preserves a pre-Malayan h before l that has been lost in all other Malayan languages, making it a direct witness to the Eastern branch’s proto-form (pp. 3–4).
- Luering proposes a three-group classification of Eastern Malayan languages—Bornean/Bajau/Buton, Philippine, and Sula-Amboyna—derived from a common ancestral source distinct from the Western branch typified by modern Malay (p. 2).
- The Kadasan speakers’ self-designation is uhlan Kadasan; they explicitly reject the European traveller’s claim of Chinese descent, and their language “certainly does not permit the least doubt as to their genuine Bornean origin” (p. 1).
- A productive intensifying prefix a- operates before adjectives in Kadasan (e.g., apodos beside podos, pungent; aninek beside ninek, small), a feature not shared with Malay (p. 4).
- The vocabulary contains a small but identifiable stratum of Malay and Malay-mediated foreign borrowings (e.g., bandera, hukum, pelita, kunchi), while the bulk of the lexicon is native Bornean (pp. 13–21).
- Luering’s phonological notes specify that the vowel a carries the Swedish/Danish/English “aw” quality, that h is always distinctly breathed, and that final k is soft but more distinctly pronounced than is customary at Singapore (pp. 4–5).
Conclusion
Luering’s definitive historical takeaway is that the Kadasan language of Kimanis constitutes one of the oldest and purest surviving forms of speech in the entire Malayan family, and that its archaic phonological and morphological features provide concrete evidence for the early geographic and linguistic separation of Borneo from the western Malay world. He frames the vocabulary not merely as a practical reference but as a philological instrument for reconstructing Proto-Malayan and, ultimately, for resolving the broader question of whether Malayan languages are more closely allied to the Indo-Chinese or the Polynesian families.
Context
- The vocabulary was collected in 1891 in Kimanis, British North Borneo, during the period of early British colonial administration of the region, and was published in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, the principal scholarly outlet for linguistic and ethnographic work in the Straits Settlements and Borneo at the time.
- Luering explicitly references W. H. Treacher’s earlier Dusun word list from the Tampassuk river, published in the same journal in 1880, establishing a small but growing archival record of Dusun-language documentation in the colonial period.