Tatana (Tatanaq) is a Sabahan language spoken in Sabah, Malaysia. Due to limited studies, it is hard to ascertain whether Tatana requires a category on its own or is considered a Bisaya variety based on its 90% linguistic intelligibility with the closely related Bisaya ethnic in Sabah. The current speakers of Tatana identify themselves as an ethnic subgroup of the Dusun people of Borneo. Jason Lobel (2013:360) classifies Tatana (along with Papar) as Murutic rather than Dusunic.
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive/ Affricate |
voiceless | p | t | k | ʔ | |
| voiced | b | d | dʒ | ɡ | ||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| Fricative | s | |||||
| Approximant | w | l | j | |||
| Rhotic | ɾ ~ r | |||||
- /ɾ/ may also be heard as a trill [r].
- Stop sounds /p, t, k/ and /b, d, ɡ/ are heard as unreleased [C̚] in word-final positions.[2]
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | (ɛ) | ə | (ɔ) |
| Open | a | ||
| Phoneme | Allophone |
|---|---|
| /ə/ | [ə], [ɛ], [œ], [ɤ], [ɔ] |
| /a/ | [ä], [æ], [ʌ] |
References
- Lobel, Jason William. 2013. Philippine and North Bornean languages: issues in description, subgrouping, and reconstruction. Ph.D. dissertation. Manoa: University of Hawai'i at Manoa.
Further reading
- Pekkanen, Inka; Dunn Chan, Phyllis A.; Dillon, John A. (1998). Buuk do tinulisan do talu bansa' gia' = Buku frasa tiga bahasa = A trilingual phrase book; Tatana' - Bahasa Malaysia - English. Kota Kinabalu, Sabah: Jabatan Muzium Sabah. ISBN 9789839638196.