Iban language

The Iban language (jaku Iban) is spoken by the Iban people. The speakers of this language mostly live in Brunei, West Kalimantan (Indonesia) and Sarawak (Malaysia). This language belongs to the Malayic subgroup. The subgroup is a part of a Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family.

Iban
Jaku Iban
Native to	Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia
Region	Borneo
Ethnicity	Iban
Native speakers	2,450,000 (2019)[1] 1,900,000 L2 speakers in Malaysia (2019)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Malayic Ibanic Iban
Writing system	Latin, Dunging
Official status
Regulated by	Tun Jugah Foundation[2] Ministry of Education Malaysia[3] Dayak Cultural Foundation[3]
Language codes
ISO 639-2	iba
ISO 639-3	iba
Glottolog	iban1264
Iban is the majority language where vast majority are first language speakers    Iban is a minority language

An Iban speaker, recorded in Malaysia.

Phonology

Consonants

Iban has the following consonant inventory:^[4]

Iban consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t	tʃ	k	ʔ
	voiced	b	d	dʒ	ɡ
Fricative			s			h
Lateral			l
Rhotic			r
Approximant		w		j

Vowels

Iban has a six-vowel system, with five cardinal vowels plus schwa:^[5]

Iban vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e	ə	o
Open		a

Vowel sounds are nasalized when preceded by a nasal consonant.^[5]

Writing system

According to Iban legend, there was an ancestor named Renggi created a writing script on the skin of wood. Unluckily, it was soaked in water and the writing vanished. Unhappy with the tragedy, Renggi ate the script and swallowed it.^[6] The script became ingrained in Renggi's brain and blood and also his descendants. Since then, the Ibans became master at memorising oral traditions, just like exactly written in books.^[7] Occasionally, the Ibans used personalised symbols as memory aids on their writing boards (papan turai).^[8][9] Papan turai was used to record ritual poems such as pengap and sabak.^[10]

Iban language had no extant writing system of its own. So, Christian missionaries adopted the Latin alphabet to write the language.^[11] A Sea Dyak Dictionary, published in 1900, was important in the early development of the Iban as a written language.^[12] During the Crown Colony era, the Borneo Literature Bureau also worked on the written form of the Iban language.^[11]

From 1947 to 1962, Dunging anak Gunggu invented an Iban syllabary. This script is known as the Dunging script.^[13][6] In 2010, Dr. Bromeley Philip of Universiti Teknologi MARA^[6] created digital fonts for Dunging script, named "LaserIban". He is the grandnephew of Dunging. The digital font is available for Windows and Macintosh computers. Dr Bromeley also launched a course to promote the use of LaserIban. He also had transcribed several traditional folktales from Latin alphabet into Dunging script.^[14] However, the Dunging script is not widely used.^[13] As of 2011, only three people in the world know how to write the Dunging script. They are Dr Bromeley himself, a longhouse chief Tuai Rumah Bagat Nunui and a teacher Ngambong Katoi.^[15]