Jakun is a Malayic language spoken in Malaysia. Specifically it is spoken on the east coast and inland of Peninsular Malaysia, around the Pairang River, from Pekan in Pahang to Sri Gading, east to Benut, northwest to middle Muar River area around the districts of Segamat, Muar and Tangkak in Johor.
The language is native to the Jakun tribe belonging to the Proto-Malay branch of the indigenous natives of Malaysia, the Orang Asli.
Dialects The Jakun language can, at the very least, be divided into two dialects: the Western Johor dialect, and the Eastern Johor dialect. They differ in mainly two aspects, pronunciation and vocabulary. In terms of pronunciation, the two dialects differ in that instances of final in the Western Johor dialect correspond to in the Eastern Johor dialect. For example, compare Western Johor 'child' and 'hand' to Eastern Johor and . Dialectal differences in the lexicon can be seen in the vocabulary section below.
A possible distinct Pahang dialect is reported to exist, although more research is required to verify this claim.
Phonology
Vowels The vowel inventory of Jakun consists of eight monophthongs, , and three diphthongs, .
+Monophthongs of JakunFrontCentralBackCloseClose-midOpen-midOpena
+ Diphthongs of Jakun Coda
Consonants The consonant inventory of Jakun consists of 19 consonants as shown in the table below. +ConsonantsLabialAlveolarPalatalVelarGlottalNasalPlosive/AffricatevoicelessvoicedFricativeRhoticLateralApproximant
Comparison with Proto-Malayic Jakun displays both innovations and retentions when compared to Proto-Malayic, the reconstructed ancestor language of all Malayic languages. Among its innovations is the loss of Proto-Malayic final in 'tail' and 'sleep' (compare Proto-Malayic and ). Among its retentions, on the other hand, is its lack of lowering of penultimate in certain words such as 'grandmother' and 'wide' (compare its Standard Malay cognates, and ). Jakun also shows a more conservative feature in its retention of Proto-Malayic in various positions such as in 'chicken' and 'leader' (compare Standard Malay and ).
Vocabulary Jakun has a lexical similarity of 92% with Standard Malay. That notwithstanding, Jakun has many unique words with no known cognates in Malay. Below is a non-exhaustive list of such words in the dialects of Jakun as spoken in Johor, in IPA transcription, along with their Standard Malay counterparts for comparison.
+Vocabulary ComparisonWestern Johor JakunEastern Johor JakunStandard MalayEnglish meaning1'to burn'2'to hate'3'silent'4'to get rid of'5'to miss' (to long for)
References
Citations
Bibliography
External links http://projekt.ht.lu.se/rwaai RWAAI (Repository and Workspace for Austroasiatic Intangible Heritage) http://hdl.handle.net/10050/00-0000-0000-0004-1640-2@view Jakun in RWAAI Digital Archive