A Vowel Inventory of the Punan Ba Language
Zeckqualine Melai and Norazuna Norahim
Abstract
Punan Ba is an indigenous language, in Sarawak, East Malaysia, classified as endangered, with an estimated speaker population of fewer than 5,000 people. The study has two main objectives: first, to identify the inventory of vowel phonemes, and second, to discuss the suprasegmental elements of vowels in the Punan language. The data for this study is consequent to our interactions with native speaking informants.
To analyze the vowel phonemes of the Punan language, we applied a descriptive linguistic approach. We also used Praat software to obtain accurate vowel sound features in the form of spectrograms. Findings reveal six vowel phonemes, three diphthongs, and two triphthongs in the language, as well as vowel lengthening for /i/, /u/, /o/, and /a/ in the phonological system. The phonological study of Punan is not only significant for salvaging the language, but also for language documentation, and contributes new data to the field of phonology.
Keywords: Punan language, descriptive linguistics, phonology, vowels inventory, linguistic anthropology, Malaysia