1. Family: Austronesian
  2. Subfamily: Western Malayo-Polynesian
  3. Genus: Sama-Bajaw

Bajau

WALS coordinates: 4° 19′ 48.00″ S, 123° E

spoken in Indonesia

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Orang Laut
Routledge:
  • Sama Bajau
Other:
  • Sama Bajau
ISO 639-3:

Features

Feature Value References
Phonology
Consonant Inventories Moderately large
Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6)
Consonant-Vowel Ratio Average
Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In plosives alone
Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems None missing in /p t k b d g/
Uvular Consonants None
Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
Front Rounded Vowels None
Syllable Structure Moderately complex
Tone No tones
Absence of Common Consonants All present
Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
Morphology
Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
Nominal Categories
Definite Articles Demonstrative word used as definite article
Verbal Categories
The Prohibitive Normal imperative + special negative
Word Order
Order of Subject, Object and Verb No dominant order
Order of Subject and Verb No dominant order
Order of Object and Verb VO
Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Prepositions
Order of Genitive and Noun Noun-Genitive
Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective
Order of Demonstrative and Noun Noun-Demonstrative
Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Initial subordinator word
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase VO and Prepositions
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun VO and NRel
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun VO and NAdj
Simple Clauses
Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Double-object construction
Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound