Developing an orthography for Onya Darat (western Borneo) Practical and theoretical considerations

• Main Author: Uri Tadmor
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Indonesia 2009-10-01
• Series: Wacana: Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia
• Subjects: onya darat, land dayak, orthographies, writing systems, phonology, borneo, west kalimantan
• Online Access: http://wacana.ui.ac.id/index.php/wjhi/article/view/162

Onya Darat is a language spoken, with great dialectal variation, in the interior<br />of western Borneo. It is the southernmost member of Land Dayak, a branch<br />of the Austronesian language family. This article reports on the development<br />of a writing system for Onya Darat. In addition to five vowels and 19 simple<br />consonants, Onya Darat also exhibits three series of complex oral-nasal<br />segments: prenasalized oral stops, preoralized nasals, and postoralized nasals.<br />An analysis of the Onya Darat sound system reveals that of these three series<br />only postoralized nasals are distinctive and therefore need to be represented<br />in the writing system. The proposed orthography, developed with the aid of<br />native speakers, represents all and only the phonemes of Onya Darat without<br />resorting to diacritics or special characters.