MINORITY CULTURES OF

PENINSULAR MALAYSIA
surv£vaLs d; Indigenous
HerLtage

Editors
Razha Rashid & Wazir Jahan Karim

Academy of Social Sciences

(AKASS)

2001
Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Rashid, Razha
Minority cultures of Peninsular Malaysia: survivals of
indigenous heritage / Razha Rashid, Wazir Jahan Karim.
ISBN 983-9700-77-4
1. Indigenous peoples-Semenanjung Malaysia-Social life
and customs. 2. Minorities-Semenanjung Malaysia.
I. Karim, Wazir Jahan. II. Title.
306.089992305951

Printed by Sinaran Bros. Sdn. Bhd.

Cover photo by Wazir Jahan Karim, A Ma' Batise' hunter, A. Kassim
(deceased) (Kg. Sg. Sialang, Carey/stand), 1991
 Chapter Eight

Orang Asli Languages: From Heritage to Death?

Geoffrey Benjamin

Introduction that the devastating loss of languages could be reversed. In

recen~ year.s, there has been a spate of professional writing
My aim in this chapter is to stir Malaysians into recoanis-
. b on thiS tOpIC (e.g., Grenoble and Whaley 1998; Steinhauer
mg that the fate of the Orang Asli languages is a matter of
and Collins, in press), as well as growing evidence of
urgent concern. and that steps should be taken to encour-
increased public concern (Diamond 1993, Geary 1997).2
age their proper study.
The languages of the Orang Asli-the aboriginal peo-
ples of Peninsular Malaysia-fall into two main sub-
VVhat is it that endangers languages?
groups. One-third speak languages that are in reality local
dialects of Malay, and which therefore belong to the great Theories of language loss
Austronesian family. One other Orang Asli language,
Most theories of language-loss fall into two broad camps,
Duano. is also Austronesian, but it is not a Malay dialect;
'murder' and 'suicide'. Language murder occurs when
it may well turn out to be closely related to Malay,
polit!cal pressures against the language become too great
however. Two-thirds of the Orang Asli, on the other hand,
to Withstand. Language suicide, on the other hand, results
speak some fifteen to twenty very distinctive languages
from the speakers' discovery that the language no longer
belonging to the Mon-Khmer division of the Austroasiatic
serves their needs in the face of other more prestigious
family. These latter languages (which are also spoken in
languages.
southern Thailand) are known collectively to linguists as
But both of these approaches oversimplify the issues.
the Aslian languages, because they are spoken only by
The argument from murder leads investigators to assume
O~ang Asli. It is important to keep the terminology in
that conquerors force their own language on others,
mmd, or confusion will result: 'Aslian' as a linguistic term
thereby influencing them to avoid investigating the
doe.s not cover all of the languages spoken by the Orang
demographic, cultural and economic factors that lead some
Ash. but only those that belong to the Mon-Khmer family.
languages to expand at faster rates than others. The
With two exceptions (Abdullah 1969, Collins 1985),
argument from suicide, on the other hand, fosters the idea
little linguistic research has yet been done on the Malay
that some languages deserve to die, which leads in turn to
dialects (Jakun. etc.) spoken by the Orang Asli, and they
their malign neglect by those in a position to do something
remain an urgent topic for investigation. The even more
about their situation.
interesting Duano language has not been studied since the
Language-loss results mainly from linguistic
1940's (Kahler 1946-49; see also Benjamin, in press a). In
homogenisation, a process that has been going on for
this chapter, therefore, I shall perforce concentrate on the
thousands of years. State expansion, even in early times,
Mon-Khmer Aslian languages, making only a few
acted to impose the rulers' languages on the incorporated
comments about the Austronesian speech varieties spoken
populations. Even more important was farming, which
by the Orang Asli.!
from around 8000 years ago has been wiping out the
First, I summarise some of the views on the reasons
nomadic hunter-gathering way of life, in which each
and remedies for language loss that appear in the current
language was spoken by about 500 people. This suggests
linguistic literature. I then move on to a survey of what is
that there may have been tens of thousands of languages in
known about the present-day status of (mainly) the Aslian
Palaeolithic times, most of which have would have
languages, with special reference to their varying degrees
disappeared without record.
of endangerment. In the final part of the chapter, I present
some examples of what can be learnt about broader
Malaysian culture through studying the evidence provided Degrees of security from extinction
by these languages-in other words. by treating them as an
Very few of the world's languages are protected from
important part of the country's cultural heritage.
extinction. The most secure languages are those that have
been chosen as official national languages. However, of
the more than two hundred nation-states that exist today,
Language endangerment some one hundred have chosen their national languages
Why should endangered languages concern us? As we from a mere five languages (English, French, Arabic,
shall see, there are good 'real-world' reasons for wishing Spanish, Portuguese), leaving room for fewer than one

Orang Asli languages 101

hundred other languages to achieve such official protec-
tion. (In this regard, the situation of Malay/Indonesian,
with its more than 200 million users, seems reasonably
secure, despite suspicions to the contrary sometimes
voiced in Malaysia.)
The next most secure languages are those that cur-
rently have at least one million speakers-which accounts
for about two hundred languages altogether (such as
Welsh, Hokkien or Sundanese). Of the six thousand or so
languages stiII spoken, that leaves at least 5,800 whose
survival is very insecure. Half of these are no longer being
learnt by children, and wiIl become extinct within the
present generation. Some of the languages discussed in
this chapter are in the latter situation, and none of them has
anything like a miIlion speakers, for they are all spoken by
members of smaIl tribal or recently-tribal populations of
Peninsular Malaysia and southern Thailand. Currently, the
total Orang Asli population amounts to about 106,000
people, of whom around 65,000 are Aslian speakers. The
remaining 4 I ,000 Orang Asli speak Malayic dialects as
their own languages. 3
Reasons for language loss
In the past, languages survived happily with just a few
hundred speakers each. Why, then, has it come about that
even one miIlion speakers is no longer a guarantee of a
language's continued existence? New ways of killing off
languages have emerged in recent centuries, simply by
kiIling off their speakers. Others, even in Europe, have
been forbidden to speak their minority languages under
threat of punishment or loss of economic viability. But the
more usual reason is the insidious death of languages
through a broadening in the scope of social relations under
modem conditions. Peace-making between formerly
warring groups, intermarriage, moving to town in search of
work, education-these lead either to the development of
pidgins and/or the adoption of the majority language. The
mass media only reinforce this pattern, as very few
minority languages are ever used in broadcasting or
newspapers.
Modernisation-a process weIl studied by sociolo-
gists-also has a profound effect on language loss, which
therefore shares some of the same features as the broader
processes of social and cultural change within which it
takes place. Examples of such processes are the various
religious phenomena referred to by sociologists as
'secularisation', or the cultural and institutional changes
that Max Weber treated more generally under the rubric of
'formal rationalisation'. Such changes do not always
involve overt coercion, although a more subtle 'hege-
monic' constraint is usuaIly present. People change the
tenor of their lives usually because it seems to them,
rightly or wrongly, the most appropriate strategy to foIlow.
They may feel nostalgic about the languages they have
given up, but it is usually self-interest that dictates what
102 Orang Asli languages
they do. Was I really justified, therefore, nearly thirty years
ago when I urged some young Semelais at Bukit Ibam (a
mining settlement in central Pahang, Malaysia) to speak
their own Southern Aslian language to each other, rather
than the Malay I heard them employing? The looks on
their faces suggested that they saw me as merely express-
ing my sentiments, not theirs, and at their expense.
The loss of a language is not the reflection of any sup-
posed lack of inherent 'fitness' in the language itself.
Biological analogies can mislead us into laying too much
emphasis on external factors and also on the idea that
some languages may be 'fitter' than others. Languages do
not experience natural selection: structural changes are the
result, not the cause, of a language's decline. In most
cases, language death involves some degree of complicity
on the part of the speakers themselves: they are not simply
unwitting victims. It is the speakers' choice, rather than
linguistic 'fitness', that leads to language loss.
Language preservation
Programmed multilingualism as a solution
If languages are to be kept alive, there must be a serious
commitment to multilingualism-not just in the standard-
ised majority languages that constitute part of the threat,
but in the threatened minority languages. A typical Anglo-
Saxon accustomed to just one language may think such
multilingualism hard to achieve, but most of the people in
the world regularly speak more than one language without
difficulty. As I write, I am thinking of a Kensiw (Northern
Aslian) man I once worked with in Kedah who, though
completely non-literate, spoke excellent Kensiw, Jahai
(also Northern Aslian), Temiar (Central Aslian), Malay
and Southern Thai (spanning three linguistic phyla), and
who tried hard to get me to teach him some English (from
a fourth phylum).
The kind of multilingualism necessary for the mainte-
nance of smaIl languages is different from this. It is also
different from the kind of multilingualism involving, say,
Mandarin Chinese in Singapore and Malaysia. It would be
more akin to the situation of Welsh in Wales, Basque in
France and Spain, Hokkien in Taiwan, Mon in Burma, or
Iban and Kadazan in Malaysia-though these are all
'bigger' languages than the ones discussed in this paper.
It is unfortunate that the current drive in many parts of
the world for the preservation of 'traditional' culture(s) has
somehow got entangled with the demands of political
nationalism. As a consequence, local languages and
dialects have too often been supplanted by normatively
standardised national languages, which-while they may
serve to resist the inroads of English (or Russian, or
Mandarin Chinese, or French, or Arabic )--are part of the
very problem we are faced with here. Modem states
admittedly need to maintain a degree of language
standardisation if they are to hold their place in the world-
 system of industrialised countries, but this is frequently
achieved at the deliberate expense of other speech-
varieties. Governments often work under the questionable
assumption that citizens will speak and write the national
language only if they are prevented from using any other
language.
How then to justifY support for the kind of multilin-
gualism that would help keep the more endangered
languages alive--even though many would see it as a great
nuisance to do so? Krauss (1992) proposes several
positive reasons. First, languages are themselves among
the most complex products of the human mind, and the
loss of each is a loss for us all.
Second, each language carries with it a culture, a lit-
erature (written or oral), a worldview and a body of
knowledge that represent an end-point of thousands of
years of invention. To eradicate these languages would be
to eradicate most of the world's accumulated art or
literature. Why spend so much, willingly, on the preserva-
tion of certain threatened plant and animal species or a
small number of threatened 'civilised' relics when we are
not prepared to do the same for threatened languages?
Third, languages are not simply interchangeable or
equivalent, nor is there an 'all-purpose best language'. All
bilinguals know that some kinds ofthings are better said or
thought in one language rather than another. Thus,
language-loss curtails the freedom of everyone: for the
world to be limited to just a few languages would be like
entering a prison. In any case, the world's standardised
national languages are becoming increasingly uniform in
their semantic organisation, whatever their origins.
Even so, would not such multilingualism be a luxury,
ranking much lower on the scale of priorities than socio-
economic development? To the contrary. The sheer
financial and social cost of cultural disintegration is
immense: lacking self-worth, disintegrating populations
soak up welfare money, while even poor people whose
cultures and languages are still viable contribute a valuable
work input to the community as a whole. Welfare money
would therefore be better spent on programmes aimed at
increasing cultural self-worth: in this, the minority
languages would playa major part.
Despite the organisational difficulties that attend
multilingualism, there is currently an official move for the
two main Aslian languages, Temiar and Semai, to be
introduced as media of instruction into Orang Asli schools
in Perak state. Materials have already been prepared by a
committee of Semai schoolteachers for use up to Primary
Two level, and a special 'orientation' meeting in support
of the programme was held in Tapah in March 1999
(Anthony Williams-Hunt, personal communication). Given
the technical difficulties involved and the uncertain level
of political will behind it, it is too early to tell whether the
plan will get off the ground. A necessary first step is for
Temiar and Semai to be 'gazetted' as officially recognised
Malaysian languages: as of early 1999, this had yet to be
done.
The need to record languages for posterity
Although we can never manage to sustain all of the world's
endangered languages, we still need to record them for
posterity. Some thousands of languages don't even have
word-lists, let alone dictionaries or grammars. If these
were to die out without record, the loss of knowledge
would- be irreversible. In particular, a major and irreplace-
able source for human history would be lost.
The genetic relationships of disappearing languages
and the etymological study of their lexicons have proved
disproportionately important in answering questions about
human history. For example: Kanakanabu, Saaroa, Rukai
and Tsou may be spoken by just 11,000 Taiwanese
Aborigines, but (according to some researchers) they
represent three whole branches of the vast Austronesian
family of one thousand languages with over 200 million
speakers (including Malay). If those Taiwanese languages
disappear, all the other Austronesian speakers (including
the Malays) will lose at least one-quarter of the necessary
linguistic data for reconstructing their own history. By one
count, Malaysia alone has over 100, mostly Austronesian,
languages, few of them recorded in any depth.
I therefore feel bound to ask: What percentage of
Mon-Khmer history-and hence the history of Mainland
Southeast Asia as a whole-is carried by the Aslian
division of Mon-Khmer? The answer could well amount to
15 or 20 percent.
Orang Asli language relationships,
demographics and ethnology
Aslian languages: history and classification
The Aslian-speakers are tribal or recently tribal popula-
tions, known collectively as Orang Ash (Malay: 'Aborigi-
nes') in Malaysia and as Sakai (an old and nowadays
'improper' Malay word for 'non-Malay tribespeople') in
southern Thailand. In Malaysia, their popUlation amounts
to some 65,000 to 70,000 out of some 106,000 Orang
Asli.4 The figures for south Thailand CManiq') are not
known for sure, but are unlikely to be more than 300, and
probably nearer 200 (Bishop and Peterson 1993a: 6). Until
very recently, none of the Aslian languages has ever been
the basis of a written literature, and few other written
sources exist. The latest population figures for the various
Aslian-speaking groups are indicated in Figure I. The
Malaysian figures (1996, 1999) are not strictly counts of
speakers, but of members of ethnic groups, as adminis-
tered by the Department of Orang Asli Affairs.
Orang Asli languages 103
Figure 1
Aslian languages: Genetic relationships (simplified) and population figures
Only approximately to scale; dotted lines indicate undetermined relationships.
Figures in roman are from unpublished materials gathered by the lOA in 1996.
Figures in italic are from the lOA's website as of March 1999.
The + sign indicates that the figure does not include the Kensiws and lahais of Thailand.
For lack of data, a few other speech varieties (such as Batek Iga') are not shown here.

'Maniq' [200]
Kensiw [416+, 224]
Kintaq [286, 235]
Jahai [1005+,1049]
Mendriq [138,145]
NORTHERN
ASLIAN Batek Deq [814, 960]
Mintil [inclt]
Batek Nong [inclt]
Chewong [321, 403]

Lanoh [313, 359]

Semnam [inclt]
Sabiim [inclt]
Temiar [15200, 15122]
CENTRAL
ASLIAN Semai [26070, 26049]

Jah Hut [3193, 3193]

Semaq Beri [2469,2488]

SOUTHERN Semelai [4055, 4103]
ASLIAN
Temoq [inclt]
Besisi [2187, 2185]

Just how the Aslian languages are related to the other
Mon-Khmer languages is not yet fully settled. This is not
because there is anything 'mysterious' about them-as
some popular literature has suggested-but because very
few Mon-Khmer languages have yet been studied in detail.
Current evidence, as garnered by Gerard Diffloth (1984),
suggests that the Aslian languages are most closely related
to Mon, the classical inscriptional language of Central and
Southern Thailand and Southern Burma.
Aslian and Mon, together with the Nicobarese lan-
guages, probably constitute a Southern sub-group within
Mon-Khmer. More remotely, Mon-Khmer also contains a
Northern sub-group (consisting of many minority lan-
guages spoken in Burma, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and
south-west China) and an Eastern sub-group contammg
such major languages as Khmer and Vietnamese, along
with many unwritten minority languages of Cambodia,
Laos and Vietnam. The Aslian languages separated off
relatively early from the Northern and Eastern branches of
the Mon-Khmer family, but they have retained many
conservative phonological and lexical features. Conse-
quently, they provide important evidence in uncovering the
earlier history of mainland Southeast Asia. A renewed
programme of research into Aslian, especially the more
endangered languages, is therefore a matter of urgency.
The Aslian languages probably descend directly from
the languages spoken by the populations who produced the
prehistoric 'Tripod-Vessel' archaeological tradition. This

104 Orang Asli languages

 has recently been excavated on the western side of the
Malay Peninsula, from isthmian Thailand to Selangor
(Leong 1990, Bellwood 1993). It belongs within the well-
known 'Ban Kao' tradition of Central Thailand, which was
almost certainly produced by speakers of early Mon. The
Tripod-Vessel tradition has been dated in the Peninsula
from around 3700 years ago until the first millennium
BCE. Its distribution matches well with linguistic evi-
dence-again, as assembled by Gerard Diffloth (personal
communication)-that the Aslian languages originally
emerged on the western side of the Main (Titiwangsa)
Range, probably in the Perak valley, only later spreading
eastwards into Kelantan, Terengganu and Pahang. There is
also linguistic evidence, mainly to do with place names, to
suggest that there may have been an earlier Mon-Khmer,
but pre-Aslian, presence in the Peninsula, associated
perhaps with the Hoabinhian and earlier Neolithic
traditions. Currently, Pahang is home to the greatest degree
of Aslian linguistic diversity, and it seems likely that the
area around Gunung Benum in particular was a significant
region of secondary Aslian linguistic dispersal. (For
further discussion ofthis idea, see Benjamin 1997.)
During the past three millennia the Aslian sub-family
has differentiated internally into three main sub-groups-
Northern Aslian (or Jahaic), Central Aslian (or Senoic)
and Southern Aslian (or Semelaic )--each containing
several languages. (Jah Hut, usually classified as Central
Aslian, may yet prove to constitute a sub-group of its
own.) The approximate locations of the languages are
given in Map I. (See Benjamin 1983 for a more detailed
map.) Their probable mutual genetic relationships are as
shown in Figure I, which is based mainly on Diffloth's
investigation of their historical phonology (Diffloth 1975).
My own lexicostatistical calculations (Benjamin I 976a),
though less reliable, produced the same result.
The Aslian languages have been influenced lexically,
and to some extent grammatically, by inputs from other
languages. These include Mon (probably spoken widely in
the lowlands of northern Malaya until around the twelfth
or thirteenth centuries), 5 Khmer (an intrusive language
carried by traders and miners) and by Tai languages in a
few cases. There is a large presence of Austronesian
elements, only some of which came from Malay, and many
of which suggest connections with Borneo, the Philippines
and with the Mainland Chamic languages. The eventual
disentangling of these elements will tell us a great deal
about the linguistic history of the Peninsula that is not
available from any other source. I refer to this issue again
in the final part of this chapter.
The tabulation of the present-day Aslian languages in
Figure I differs in a few regards from the 'official' listing
of Orang Asli populations followed by the 10A (which is
the source of the population figures given here). Semnam,
Sabiim, Mintil and Temoq are categories not currently
recognised by the JOA, nor does the JOA distinguish
between various kinds of Batek; but these additional labels
are necessary for linguistic and ethnological work. As
indicated by the [inclt] sign, the population counts of
these four groups are included in the immediately
preceding figures. Besisi (the older term, found even in the
Sejarah Melayu) is called Mah Meri by the 1OA.
The Southern Aslian languages (Temoq, Semaq Beri,
Semelai and Besisi) split apart and moved away from each
other much more cleanly than the Central and Northern
Aslian languages, with little secondary lexical borrowing
between them (Benjamin 1976a: 75). This suggests that
the ancestral populations were more interested in contacts
with outsiders than with each other, as we would expect of
a population specialising in collecting-and-trading. This
Southern Aslian preference for autonomous communities,
relatively closed off from each other but adapted primarily
to relations with members of other societies, is shared with
the Malays (Orang Melayu) and the Malayic-speaking
Orang Asli to the present day.
The Northern Aslian languages present a quite differ-
ent picture, and special statistical techniques were found
necessary to sort them out (Benjamin 1976a: 60-66). This,
and the high degree of mutual lexical borrowing between
them, is because the Northern Aslian speakers have long
maintained a continuous mesh of communication with
each other, from southern Thailand right down to central
Pahang. This resulted from long-term small-group
nomadism coupled with wide-ranging intermarriage, which
is still found among the Semang at the present day.6
Consequently, most Semang camps contain members of
several different subgroups, and each individual employs a
slightly different vocabulary than everyone else.
The Central Aslian languages display a third distinc-
tive pattern. Like the Southern Aslian languages, they
broke away from each other at various times in the past
but, as with the Northern Aslian languages, this did not
lead to a cessation of intercommunication, for there
remains a high rate of secondary vocabulary borrowing
between them. This resulted from continued but restricted
communication, largely through intermarriage, between
fairly large sedentary populations living in separate
valleys. Their swidden-farming activities mean that they
have exhibited this pattern right into recent times: they
move every few years between village sites the locations
of which are narrowly circumscribed by the valley walls
and by neighbouring villages upstream and downstream.
With a few exceptions, each subdivision of the Aslian
languages has thus encapsulated within its pattern of
differentiation the decision of its earliest speakers to
follow distinct ways of life: Northern Aslian foragers,
Central Aslian horticulturalists, and Southern Aslian
collectors-for-trade.
Orang Asli languages 105
Map 1
Orang Asli languages (from Benjamin 1985a) . . .
Approximate only, indicating the maximal known historical dlstnbutlOns of the languages
rather than their present-day locations, which are more restncted. ., . . .
Some of the language names differ from those employed in this chapter: 'Mah Men IS Beslsl;
'Che' Wong' is Chewong; 'Orang Hulu' is lakun; 'Orang Kuala' is Duano .

Thailand 102
.

s·

KEY:

languages
Northern
Aslian
Central
Astian
Southern
Asllon
Malay Austronesian ,,
dialects
Orang "
Boundaries Kuala
Ethnic group.

Slat. o 100 kilomelres

Inlernallonal
e----. F+3 .-----d
0 SINGAPORE
102

Aboriginal Malay(ic) languages press a). Clearly then, the Austronesian languages of the
Peninsula are the result not of differentiation but of
In contrast to the Aslian languages, the still extant
replacement, with Malay dialects sweeping many of the
Austronesian languages of the Peninsula show an unvary-
Aslian languages before them. On current evidence, these
ing pattern. Except for the loanwords in Aslian mentioned
Malayic speech-varieties would have started arriving on
earlier, there is today hardly any evidence left of a
the Peninsula from Sumatra and Borneo around 2000 years
distinctive, non-Malay, Peninsular Austronesian. A few
ago.
coastal groups, notably those who still maintain active ties
It is still commonly believed in Malaysia that Malay
with their fellows in Sumatra, still speak a language
and the other Austronesian languages arrived from the
('Duano' or 'Desin Dolaq'-referred to as 'Orang .Kuala'
north, and from Yunnan in particular. This view derives
by the JOA) distinct from Malay, but not very. dl~ere~t
from the writings ofR. O. Winstedt, who was almost alone
from it (Kahler 1946--49; Collings 1949a; Benjamlll, III
in holding it. As Director of Education he was able to

106 Orang Asli languages

 lllsllluate his ideas into the standard school textbooks,
where they remain today. Current linguistic opinion,
however, holds that the Austronesian stock, to which
Malay belongs, moved into our region through the islands
and possibly also across the South China Sea. The Malay
Peninsula was therefore among the last, not the first,
places to be inhabited by Austronesian speakers.? Most
scholars working on Austronesian historical linguistics
have placed the Austronesian homeland in Taiwan, where
several Austronesian languages are still spoken; but
arguments have also been raised in favour of coastal south-
east China (not Yunnan) or the Philippines.
Why were Austronesian Malayic dialects, Malay
among them, able to spread through the south of the
Peninsula in such a short time? Some speakers of Southern
Aslian languages can be observed at the present day to be
shifting to Malay. The speakers of Northern and Central
Aslian, however, still resist the loss of their languages
although they speak excellent Malay when communicating
with outsiders. Institutional factors, such as the choice of
Temiar and Semai as the two main languages for use in
Orang Asli radio programmes, undoubtedly playa part in
this, but the underlying difference is one of consciousness.
The Northern-Aslian Semang populations, along with the
Temiars and Semais, have until recently been orientated
more towards their own immediate situations than to the
outside world, while the southern Orang Asli and the
Malays have been orientated more towards the outside
world than to their fellows in other villages. The southern
peoples, with their more 'transcendental' mode of
consciousness and peasant-like socio-economic circum-
stances, have proved more susceptible to the spread of the
exogenous but centralised and assimilatory culture of the
traditional Malay states than the northerners, who have
retained their variously 'immanent' or 'dialectical' modes
of consciousness and tribal socio-economic circumstances
up to the present day. 8
Research on Orang Asli languages
The problem of notating the languages
Regrettably, the high and comprehensive quality of
ethnographic work on the Orang Asli has only very
recently come to be replicated in work on Aslian linguis-
tics. The general quality of the linguistic data contained
within the ethnographic accounts remains unsatisfactory,
and much valuable information about the Orang Asli
languages is being lost. This is as true of work done by
Malaysian scholars (including researchers who are
themselves Orang Asli), as of the work of foreigners. One
problem is that researchers, Malaysians especially (of
whatever language background), have been too much in
thrall to the spelling conventions of romanised Malay to
dare use extra symbolsY The vowels in particular are
recorded poorly, though the consonants often suffer too.
In an earlier attempt to improve matters, I wrote a
detailed two-part article (Benjamin 1985b, 1986) directed
specifically at non-linguists working on Orang Asli
studies. My aim was to help them pronounce and write
down the languages as accurately as they would wish to
record any other ethnographic details. Unfortunately, to
date my efforts seem to have had no significant results:
those who would have done a good job anyway went
ahead and did so without my help, while those who were
going to do a less than accurate job seem to have ignored
my suggestions! The only response to it came from
linguists-for whom it was not intended, despite the
wealth of detail presented.
As a guide to better transcription, I present here an
outline of the special symbols that are used in the current
scholarly orthography. They are pronounced approxi-
mately as in the given examples, according to the southern
Peninsular Malay or 'Received' southern British (not
American or Australian) pronunciations.
Vowels
As in Malay tapis: Kensiw kolm)is 'liver'.
e As in Malay leher: Jahai te'? 'earth'. It can also be
written as e.
c As the e in English get: Temiar lch 'wife'. It can
also be written as e.
Ii As the u in Scottish hus ('house') or the ii in Ger-
man Hiitte: Jah Hut kablis 'dead'. It can also be
written as ii.
a The 'neutral' schwa (pepet) vowel, like the e in
Malay betul or sumber: Jah Hut bas 'throwaway'.
In pre-final syllables, this vowel is not always pho-
nemic, and may therefore be omitted in certain
technical contexts. For practical purposes, how-
ever, it is helpful to write it in: Semai grpar or
garpar 'bat'. In word-final syllables, it is always
phonemic, and must be written in a manner that
distinguishes it from e, c, m or Ii (all of which have
been written as e by non-linguists). It can also be
written as e.
a As in Malay belah: Semai garpar 'pigeon'.
u As the first u in Malay pucuk: Temoq luk 'dart
quiver'.
o As the 0 in Malay gol ('goal' in football): Lanoh
doo'? 'father'.
.J As the au in English taut, but shorter: Jah Hut}.]!!
'foot'. It can also be written as o.
In some Aslian languages, a few other vowels occur:
m (or i) As the Vietnamese vowel u' (or somewhat like
the Russian vowel usually romanised as y). Pro-
nounced like u but with the lips unrounded. There
Orang Asli languages 107
 is no English or Malay equivalent (although it can
sometimes be heard in Australian English).
¥ As the Vietnamese vowel CY. Pronounced like 0,
but with the lips unrounded. This occurs fre-
quently in Semai as written by Gerard Diffioth.
There is no normal English or Malay equivalent
(although some southern-Malay speakers use
something like it in word-final -a).
v As the 0 in (British) English hot.
(£ As the a in English man.
Nasal vowels are written with a superscript tilde:
Temiar Weed (oral) 'barkcloth', but weed (nasal) 'giddy';
Chewong ha?i1t 'rotten'; Batekpaca? 'wet'. The phonemi-
cally long vowels of Central Aslian are written doubled:
Temiar te? 'earth', tee? 'earlier today'.
There are few, if any, Aslian languages with less than
nine places of vowel articulation, which in many cases are
cross-cut by further phonemic oppositions between oral
and nasal andlor between long and short. The symbols
a,e,i,o,u just will not capture the rich vowel systems of the
Aslian languages, which amount to thirty or more pho-
nemes in some cases.
Consonants
These are mostly written and pronounced as in the modem
romanised spelling used for Bahasa Malaysia, but some of
the symbols require further explanation: 10
c Pronounced like the c in Malay cuci; unlike Ma-
lay, this consonant commonly occurs word-finally,
as in Temiar bacuuc 'sour'.
j Pronounced like the j in Malay janji; this too can
occur in positions unknown in Malay: Batek haj
'rain', Temiar bejb;x)j 'lick'.
Jl Pronounced like the ny in Malay nyanyi; this fre-
quently occurs word-finally in Aslian, as in lahai
tuhuJl 'red'. It is not appropriate to write this pho-
neme as ny, because it is a single sound and be-
cause the cluster n+y also occurs in Aslian lan-
guages. As an alternative, ii may be used.
/) Pronounced like the ng in Malay nganga or Eng-
lish singer (not as in finger). It is not appropriate
to write this as ng, because it is a single sound and
because the cluster n+g also occurs in Aslian lan-
guages.
? The glottal stop (hamzah), a consonantal- pho-
neme, sounding like the k in Peninsular Malay
pronunciations of duduk or rakyat. The ? can oc-
cur in the same positions as any other consonant,
as in Temiar ?e??ee? '[kind of bird]'. Although
word-initial glottal stop in Malay is always omit-
ted in writing, it should be written in Aslian, as
certain grammatical processes otherwise become
difficult to explain. Some writers use q instead of?
for notating the glottal stop, especially word-
108 Orang Asli languages
finally, but this is likely to mislead casual readers.
The apostrophe, /'1, is also used, but it is easily
confused with the punctuation mark. The question
mark, ?, can also be used if nothing else is avail-
able.
k Always pronounced as a velar, like the k in Malay
makan, and not as a glottal stop, even word-
finally. Peninsular Malay-speakers frequently
confuse Aslian ? and k, even to extent of writing
them wrongly. The ethnic name Balek, for exam-
ple, is currently written Batiq (presumably for
Bati?) by the lOA; but the final consonant in this
word is a real k, not a glottal stop. (The vowel is
quite different too.)
When writers and researchers employ inadequate tran-
scriptions, all-important distinctions are lost. The differ-
ences between the following are regularly ignored: 101 and
I:JI, lei and It:!, stressed 131 and lui or lut!, long and short
vowels, and word-final PI and Ikl.ll Other problems that
arise are: the omission of I?I at the beginning of a syllable
or word (en for ?t:n, en en for ?t:n?t:n), the use of vowels
instead of consonants at the ends of syllables or words
(senoi for st:n?:J:JY), and the failure to recognise word-final
palatals for what they are (poit for p:J:JC). Some writers
have represented the languages as obligatorily monosyl-
labic, which they are not (cheb chib or cheb-chib for
ccbciib), and word-boundaries frequently go unrecognised.
Britishers and Australians are wont to add silent 'helper'
letters, mainly rand h, to indicate vowel quality or length,
such ter for tu3h or tmmh. And almost all such writers are
confused about the differences between affixes, clitics and
separate words, so that the hyphen either gets misused, or
not used when it should be. These same problems, of
course, are precisely those that would inhibit the develop-
ment of literacy in the Aslian languages themselves. (Very
many Aslian-speakers are now literate-but in Malay, and
sometimes English, not their own languages.)
A recent example of these problems is found in the
sleeve-notes accompanying the pop-music recording, Asli,
by the Orang Asli group lelmol (i.e., Jt:lm:JI, the Temiar
for 'mountains').12 Although most of the lyrics are in
Malay, two of the tracks are in Temiar. Unfortunately, the
enclosed leaflet presents a confused transcription (by a
non-Temiar) of the Temiar lyrics, and provides no
translation. With the help of the singers themselves, and
especially of Itam Keladis the lead vocalist, I have been
able to prepare a fair version of their lyrics. A sample
follows. The first row in each line gives the original
sleeve-note transcription, the second is the corrected
phonemic transcription, and the third is the word-for-word
gloss. Careful comparison of the two Temiar-language
lines will show that the published transcription exhibits
many of the transcriptional faults just mentioned: long and
short vowels are not distinguished; vowels are written
word-finally in place of the appropriate consonant; the
letter e is employed for no fewer than four different been done, especially from Mahidol and Thammasat
vowels, Ie, 9, c:, ul; the letter a indicates both 101 and I:JI; Universities.
and the letter k indicates both Ikl and I?I: Aslian linguistics in Malaysia has therefore looked
rather bleak until very recently, and most of the work has
BENBEJON .. . BABOK YEK been done by foreign researchers. 14 Three full-time
Bc:nbaj:Jn .. . baboo? yee? linguists have done intensive work on the Aslian languages
Beautiful... woman my of Malaysia, and several other linguists and linguistically
'Beautiful...my woman' trained anthropologists have also produced studies. Gerard
Diffioth, a leading researcher in comparative and historical
BERAJON TUI KAL Mon-Khmer studies, began his interest in that family with
B9raj:Jn tuuy kaal fieldwork on Aslian languages in the 1960's, while giving
Out-of-reach over-there from-now-on occasional lectures on Dravidian linguistics at the
'Now far away and out of reach' University of Malaya. He has since published many papers
on Semai and on comparative Aslian historical phonology,
BEJBEHEJ HENUM YEK
and more are in the offing. His short exploratory grammar
&jb9huj hanum yee?
of Jah Hut (Diffioth 1976a) was by far the most detailed
Pining breath my
account of any Aslian language for several decades.
'My heart pines for her' (These are in addition to Diffioth's many studies on other
BENBEJON BABOK YEK branches of Mon-Khmer outside Malaysia.) My own work
Bc:nbaj:Jn baboo? yee? as a part-time (but reasonably well trained) linguist has
Beautiful woman my also added to the materials on Aslian (especially Temiar),
a field that I continue to work on.
'Beautiful. .. my woman'
More recently, Nicole Kruspe has written an im-
BERAJON TU! BILOK
mensely detailed study of Semelai grammar as her PhD
B9raj:Jn tuuy bib:J?
thesis (University of Melbourne, 1999), soon to be
Out-of-reach over-there from-now-on
published. This may well tum out to be the most extensive
'Far away and out of reach from now on' study to date of any Mon-Khmer language. Kruspe is
currently also working on a dictionary of Semelai, in
Why are Malaysians not studying cooperation with the ethnographer Rosemary Gianno. IS
Orang Asli languages? Currently, Nicolas Burenhult is conducting detailed
research on Jahai towards his PhD thesis at Lund Univer-
There are at least three Malaysian universities where sity in Sweden. He has already published several papers,
linguistics is taught, and there are several excellent and including a valuable bibliographical essay (Burenhult
capable linguists in the country. A few of these produced 1999) on Aslian linguistics in general. (See also his
short studies on Aslian languages earlier in their careers, chapter in this volume.)
but they have not returned to the field: Asmah (1963, The best general survey of the Aslian languages from
1976), Nik Safiah and Ton (1979) and Teoh Boon Siong a linguistic point of view is due to be published in 2001. I
(part-author of Holaday, Chin and Teoh 1985). Neverthe- refer to James Matisoff's illuminating secondary account
less, there has been not a single Master's or PhD thesis of Aslian (Ms, 1983) in his forthcoming volume on the
from Malaysia on any of these languages. (However, there languages of Mainland Southeast Asia. Relying mainly on
is a Master's thesis on Temuah, one of the Aboriginal data from Diffioth, Asmah and myself, as well surveying
Malay languages: Abdullah 1969.) the older literature, Matisoff goes well beyond what
Working on an unknown language rather than follow- appears on the surface of the reports he uses, and he
ing the well-trodden pathways of Standard Malay would presents a thorough exploration of much that would
surely be the best way to make a scholarly 'killing', but the otherwise have gone unrecognised. This, I hope, will
few postgraduate students who have been interested in stimulate further research interest within Malaysia.
working on Aslian have been nudged instead into studying
Malay.13 Many years ago I referred to this in print
(Benjamin 1989: 21) as an 'academic scandal'. I see no
reason to change that opinion today. This is all the more Sociolinguistic issues
regrettable when compared to the high quality of work
The differing degrees of endangerment
done in Thailand, which has at most a mere five or six
of Orang Asli languages
Aslian speech varieties. Fieldwork on Mon-Khmer
languages, including Aslian, has generally been a matter of The degree of endangerment attaching to the survlvmg
high priority there, and several important studies of the Orang Asli languages is not uniform, nor is it necessarily
Northern Aslian languages of southernmost Thailand have directly proportional to the numbers of speakers.

Orang Asli languages 109

 Any consideration of the Aslian languages' degree of
endangerment requires us to take account of the long-term
interaction between those languages and Malay. A simple
measure of this is provided by the differing percentages of
Malay loans found in the basic vocabularies that I used in
an earlier lexicostatistical study (Table 1). The figures
show that the highest rates of borrowing from Malay were
found among the smaller and/or collecting populations,
especially where lowland Aslian-speakers have historically
been straddling old Malay routes through the forest. Batek
Deq, Mintil and Semelai exemplify this. The lowest rates
of Malay borrowings, on the other hand, were found
among the large farming populations, Temiar and Semai.
This results both from their relatively remote situation and
from their higher degree of self-sufficiency. However,
other factors are at play too (as discussed in Benjamin, in
press b).
Southern Aslian
I suspect that the languages in greatest danger are those in
the south (such as Semelai and Besisi) which are spoken in
the vicinity of other Orang Asli communities who speak a
Table 1
Aslian languages of Malaysia: Loan rates from Malay (percent)
(Source: Benjamin 1976a: 73)
Northern Aslian
Kensiw Kintaq Jahai Mendriq Batek Deq
7 5 II 10 21
Central Aslian
Semnam SabUm Lanoh Temiar Semai I
10 5 5 2 7
Southern Aslian
Besisi Semaq Beri Semelai Temoq
25 10 23 14
Central Aslian
Further north. there is no Aboriginal Malay population, so
that any thought of shifting to Malay as the customary
language would mean simply becoming Malay (masuk
Melayu). with its attendant conversion to Islam. While a
number of Semais and Temiars have indeed become
Muslims, especially in Perak, they have done so while
retaining their own languages-so far, at least. Semai and
Temiar. however, are not in the same boat where endanger-
ment is concerned, although they both possess a relatively
large number of speakers.
Semai is split into more than forty quite variable dia-
lects. not all of which are mutually intelligible (Diffloth
1977). This reduces the likelihood of the continued
existence of Semai as a language: each dialect, with an
1 10 Orang Asli languages
Malay dialect as their sole language. The example
presented by a still-pagan and tribal population that can
get away with speaking Malay may well reassure the
Southern-Aslian-speakers that their culture is not threat-
ened merely by changing language. Ethnographers who
have worked among Aboriginal Malay populations hcve
told me that they encountered very strong feelings of
ethnic identity there, coupled with a high degree of
resistance to Melayu-isation. There is scattered evidence
that the Southern Aslian languages formerly extended
further south than they do now, and that their speakers
switched to Malayic dialects, without actually becoming
Malays (Miklucho-Maclay 1878; Williams-Hunt 1952;
Gianno, cited in Benjamin 1997). On the other hand,
Nicole Kruspe's recent research indicates that Semelai is
still more vigorous than I formerly feared, at least in some
areas. Besisi (also known as Mah Meri, B~tisek, etc.)
seems not to be faring quite so well, although it is certainly
still spoken. A century ago, its lexicon was noted by Skeat
(in Skeat and Blagden 1906, vol. I: 688) as having
absorbed a high proportion of Malayic elements, and
currently its physical habitat on Carey Island is under great
threat.
Mintil Batek Nong Chewong
16 10 12
Semai II Jah Hut
5 18
average of around 700 speakers each, is therefore on its
own. Moreover, the Semais did not have a strong sense of
overall group identity until recently. On the other hand.
Semai is employed daily in radio broadcasts by the state
broadcasting company. J 6
Temiar culture is broadly similar to highland Semai
culture, but there are important sociolinguistic differences.
First, Temiar has few dialectal variations (mainly into a
northern and southern dialect) and all forms of Temiar are
mutually intelligible-even to me. The relatively uniform
character of Temiar, coupled with its highly regularised
pattern of verbal morphology (Figure 4, p. 112). suggests
that a process akin to language standardisation has
occurred-however unlikely that might be in a segmentary
tribal society.
 A second feature of Temiar is that it is buffered on
almost all sides from wider Malaysian society by Aslian-
speaking populations. Malay has also impinged on Temiar
in a few places. This central location has had two main
effects. Borrowing from the other languages has greatly
increased the Temiar word-stock, generating a high degree
of synonymy: often there are several words available for
the same or closely similar meanings. In this respect, then,
Temiar has moved in the opposite direction from that taken
by disappearing languages. Another important effect has
been to make Temiar into a lingua franca: many other
Orang Asli and some Malays speak Temiar as a second
language.
Perhaps because of this feature, Temiar has gained a
further lease of life under the new circumstances generated
by the lOA, and in particular its hospital complex at Ulu
Gombak, just north of Kuala Lumpur. There, Orang Asli
of all groups live and work together, communicating
freely. Although they all speak Malay, very many of them
also speak Temiar as an expression of 'Asli' solidarity. As
a consequence, Orang Asli from groups not traditionally
known to the Temiars have also learnt to speak Temiar.
Northern Aslian
The situation of the Northern Aslian languages is different
again. Although the Semang populations are small (but
relatively constant over the long term), the languages are
not endangered on that account, and they may yet survive
for some time.
First, the Semang populations have long been held in
some disdain by their Malay neighbours, who (in earlier
times, at least) regarded them as not fully human. Semang
people are quite aware that they are often seen as members
of a pariah population. Even now, Semang nomadism (real
or imagined) seems to be the feature that most disturbs
Malay commentators, sophisticated or not. As Max Weber
pointed out (1958 [1922-23]: 270), pariah groups tend to
develop compensatory cultural mechanisms so as to
protect their self-worth. Among these is an ideology of
brotherhood and egalitarianism, coupled with a concern
for normative cultural propriety. The latter is most obvious
in the strict sexual mores that most Semang groups
proclaim-especially in comparison to what they see as
the Temiars' immoral ways. But it would be surprising if it
did not also show in an attachment to their own distinctive
languages.
A second feature complements this: the mesh-like
relation between the different varieties of Northern Aslian
is as much idiolectal (individual) as dialectal (group-
based). The Semang have thus long been used to linguistic
non-uniformity. In one Semang village in southern
Thailand 'there were 6 [Northern Aslian] languages and/or
dialects represented among the 13 adults present in this
particular village of 28 people' (Bishop & Peterson 1993:
1). Endicott (1997) reports very similar circumstances
among the Bateks of Kelantan. Such variation is unlikely
to make Northern-Aslian speakers feel that their languages
are too 'small' to maintain. In addition, they are used to an
overt and unusually high rate of linguistic change:
Northern-Aslian speakers regularly consciously change
their way of speaking during their lives, depending on
whom they marry and where they wander to.
Thus, we may reasonably expect the Northern Aslian
languages both to survive and undergo rapid change in
future. This claim gains some support from the finding just
reported that there are at least five such languages or
varieties spoken in southern Thailand, several of which no
longer retain contact with the Northern Aslian languages
of Malaysia, and which have survived virtually in secret.
Jakun, Temuan
For lack of data, it is not possible to comment here on the
degrees of endangerment of these Austronesian speech
varieties. It is probably safe to assume, however, that at
least some of these varieties are highly endangered. The
1999 popUlation figures were:
lakun (including Orang Kanaq and 17,502
Orang Seletar)
Temuan 16,020
Duano (with probably a further 5000+ 2,492
in Indonesia)
Orang Asli languages as Malaysian heritage
We need to ask what would be lost, or never known, if the
Orang Asli languages disappeared. In discussing this issue,
we should distinguish between what would be lost to the
speakers themselves and what would be lost to the wider
world (especially scholarship )-not that the two concerns
are incompatible.
Scholarship as giving respectable 'language' status
to speech-varieties
In the modem world, those who advocate the preservation
of traditions or 'cultures' must refer back to an established
body of literature if they are first to persuade power-
holders that there is something worth taking seriously. For
concerned linguists, the primary job m'ay just be to stop
people from dismissing endangered speech-varieties as
mere 'dialects' and think of them instead as languages.
How better to do this than by producing polished gram-
mars and dictionaries? The now-standard European
'languages' were brought into being in late Renaissance
times by the printing of monolingual dictionaries and
grammars (Harris 1980). (Previously, dictionaries and
Orang Asli languages III
 grammars had been for the study ofJoreign languages.) By
referring to these books, people came to see even their
own language as an institution 'out there', to be used or
abused at their peril. This literary confidence trick was to
become intrinsic to the modem way of looking at the
world. There seems to be little hope of getting the powers-
that-be to take things seriously unless those things are first
documented. Modem rationality-instrumental and formal
in character-demands no less. Closely associated with
this is the notion that 'a culture' must have a pedigree or
heritage, demonstrating its linkage to the patterning of
world culture as a whole. Any 'culture' without such a
linkage has little hope of being taken seriously by the more
dominant members of society.
Fortunately, it is precisely in indulging scholarly lin-
guistic interests that such cultural respectability is
generated. In Southeast Asia, approaches based solely on
the written records in the region's national languages have
been notoriously misleading guides to cultural reality. For
one thing, most of those languages-Burmese, Thai,
Khmer, Vietnamese, and even Malay-are relative
newcomers to the regions they currently dominate, and
they have served as much to disguise history as to reveal it.
But the region's dominated and endangered languages
(coupled with the still nascent study of archaeology)
contain within them the truest guides we possess to the
cultural framework.
Aboriginal Malay(ic) languages
As remarked earlier, the Malayic dialects spoken by Orang
Asli are greatly under-researched. In the 1980s this went
so far that a university-based project to study the Malay
dialects of the Peninsula deliberately omitted these speech
varieties from consideration. This decision was clearly
motivated by non-linguistic concerns, but it thereby
guaranteed that the researchers would lack access to one of
the most important sources for the historical and compara-
tive linguistics of Malay.
The scattered information available on these dialects
presents tantalising glimpses of features that are both
interesting in themselves and crucial to the broader
understanding of Malay linguistics. For example, over 60
years ago, Noone (1939: 157) pointed out that lakun
speakers make much more use of the prefixes meN- and
be- than do ordinary Malays. To my knowledge, this
unexpected finding has not been followed up since. In a
more recent professional study, Collins (1985) has shown
with a few well-chosen examples based on his own field
research just how important the lakun dialects are to
gaining a wider understanding of Malay. In a detailed
study, Kahler (1960) demonstrated that the lakun dialects
continue on through Singapore, out into the Riau Islands
and mainland Sumatra in Indonesia, albeit with some
variation between them. This gives substance to Skeat's
112 Orang Asli languages
decision a century ago to refer to the Orang Laut as 'Sea
lakun' (Skeat and Blagden 1906, vol. 1: 87).
In the Lingga islands south of Riau, the descendants
of the old Malay royal families even today speak a variety
of Malay much closer to that spoken by the tribal Orang
Laut of the area than to the Malay spoken by the Bugis-
descended Malays who replaced them on Pulau Penyengat
in the late 1700's (Vivienne Wee, personal communica-
tion). Moreover, the Lingga royals use several forms of
expression that the present-day Riau royals affect to
despise as sounding too 'tribally' coarse. Since Standard
Malaysian and Standard Indonesian are both derived from
the written version of the Riau variety of Malay, this point
is of great sociolinguistic interest, and warrants further
research.
In this regard, it is interesting to note that the Temuan
language as described by Abdullah Hassan (1969), spoken
by a large Orang Asli population in Negeri Sembilan, is
much closer to 'standard' Malay than is the famously
variant form spoken by the Malays of the area. Since the
latter people are descended from Minang migrants who
moved across from West Sumatra some centuries ago,
bringing their own Malayic dialect with them, it is
Temuan, not Negeri Sembilan Malay, that should be
considered as the historically 'authentic' Malay dialect of
that part of the Peninsula.
Duano, the remaining Austronesian language spoken
by Orang Asli (the so-called Orang Kuala), is also
distributed on both sides of the Straits, being spoken in the
Pontian area of lohor (Malaysia) and on Pulau Rangsang
and the lambi coast of Sumatra (Indonesia). The brief
grammatical sketch of the language with accompanying
texts provided by Kahler (1946-49) affords a fascinating
glimpse of the complicated linguistic mix out of which
Malay itself probably emerged some two thousand years
ago. Linguists have so far paid little attention to this
important material, the significance of which I commented
on in a recent study on Malay linguistics (Benjamin, in
pressa).17
Aslian from the linguistic point of view
Linguistics in general depends crucially on information
derived from the world's lesser known languages, as these
frequently contain features that simply do not occur in the
more 'standardised' languages. Data from the Aslian
languages are playing an increasingly important part in
wider theoretical discussions among linguists, especially in
the field of morphology (the way in which words are built
up through inflection and agglutination). More detailed
accounts of the linguistic character of the Aslian languages
will be found elsewhere (see especially the studies by
Asmah, Benjamin, Bishop, Burenhult, Diffloth, Kruspe
and Matisoff listed below in the References, and the
relevant chapters in this volume). These will probably
interest linguists more than other readers, so I shall present
only the most basic features here.
Sound systems
All Aslian languages possess a larger number of pho-
nemes-meaningfully distinctive sounds-than Malay.
The use of additional symbols is therefore unavoidable if
the Aslian languages are to be written down in an unambi-
guous manner that can be read without guesswork. As
already noted, a norm has emerged among scholars
working on Mon-Khmer languages as to how the lan-
guages of that family should be written down. The same
orthography can also be used for the Aboriginal Malayic
languages. The inaccurate and impressionistic modes of
transcription employed by earlier writers are consequently
less used today, although many researchers are still using
them. The Orang Asli too, on the few occasions when they
write down their own languages, do so in an ad hoc
manner based on the norms of romanised Malay. This may
be adequate for their own purposes, but it is of restricted
use to those who do not already know the languages.
Aslian consonantal systems (Figure 2) are in general
similar to that of Malay. The sounds f and z are very rare,
occurring only in a few Northern Aslian languages.
Aspirated stops are found only in Southern Aslian
languages, in syllable-initial position. The pronunciations
are mostly as in Standard Malay. In some Aslian lan-
guages, however, consonants are sometimes pronounced in
a distinctively 'split' manner when they occur word-
finally: Jahai [w:hJ] 'child' for W:J1] 'child', Temiar [kabm ]
'bite' for kab, Semelai [tai.J1] 'weave' for taJ1 for example.
This ftmture, which has been accorded a variety of
technical labels, is of considerable historical interest, for it
is also found in some minority Austronesian languages
spoken in Johor, Sumatra and Sarawak, unrelated to
Aslian.
Aslian vowel systems are very full, for there are usu-
ally at least nine significantly different tongue positions
(compared to the five or six of Standard Malay). The
vowels of Jah Hut are typical, but some languages have
even more complicated systems, such as the Kampar
dialect of Semai (Figure 3).

Figure 2
Aslian consonants
Labial Dental Palatal Velar Post-velar

Voiceless stops p c k
Aspirated stops p
h
c
h
t
Voiced stops b d J g

Nasals m n J1 1]

Semi-vowels W Y
Fricatives, flaps, (j) s ?

etc r h
(z)

Figure 3 Additionally, in most Aslian languages several of the

Aslian vowels 18 vowels exist in both normal ('oral') versions and nasal
ones, and the contrast is phonemic. (In Standard Malay,
Jab Hut
nasalisation is a phonetic 'accident' without phonemic
Front Central Back
significance.) In Temiar, Semai and Sabiim, there is also a
High u u phonemic opposition between short and long vowels,
directly descended from that of Proto-Mon-Khmer. (Malay
Mid e ;) 0
vowels never show any such distinction.) Temiar, for
Low f: a :J
example, has no fewer than thirty phonemically distinct
vowels, while some Semai dialects, such as Kampar, have
Kampar Semai
even more. The full range of vowels appears only in word-
High Ul u final syllables; pre-final syllables display a more restricted
Mid-high e 0 choice. In most Orang Asli languages, word-stress falls on
Mid the final syllable (in contrast to the normally penultimate
stress of the Malay spoken by Orang Melayu), and is
Mid-low f: :J
usually strongly marked. This habit carries over into the
Low ce v pronunciation of 'naturalised' Malay loanwords.

Orang Asli languages 113

 In most of the Aslian languages, the consonants too
are subject to distributional limitations, which can
sometimes be rather complicated. Malay-speakers should
note that in some Aslian languages, the voiced stops b, d,
j, and g can occur word-finally: Temiar gabag 'sing',
Mintil haj 'rain'. All Aslian words begin with a consonant
(which is another reason for writing in all the initial glottal
stops). In Northern and Central Aslian languages, all
words also end in consonants. Elements ending in a vowel
are therefore not full words, but enclitics that should be
joined to the following word by a hyphen: Temiar na- 'he,
she, it', na-na? 'she-there'. (Genuinely phonemic diph-
thongs are found in Jah Hut, however: ciek 'sleep', but
cyek 'banana'.) Southern Aslian languages do allow words
to end in a vowel. The situation in Aboriginal Malayic lan-
guages is unclear: frequently, they possess a word-final
consonant where the equivalent 'standard' Malay form has
just the vowel (Noone 1939: 153). In all the Orang Asli
languages, word-final diphthongs are constituted of
phonemic sequences involving the semi-vowel consonants
wand y: -Vy, -Vw, -yVC or -wVc. Examples are Kensiw
law 'what?', Semai ScJl]?;;y 'person', Temiar lihyek 'saliva',
Semaq Beri may 'mother'.

Figure 4
The Temiar verb: inflectional and derivational morphology
The simplified, context-free meanings are for illustration only

VOICE ASPECT VERBAL NOUN

Perfective I Imperfective I Progressive

One-syllabled: gal 'to sit', t&rgal 'to seat'

Base gul gelgal bd-gelgul gelndl, nelgdl

'sit' (completed) 'sit' (uncompleted) 'currently sitting' 'a sitting'

Middle gagdl bd-gagul gdnagal

'sit' (uncontrolledly or all together at once) 'currently seated' 'an uncontrolled
(uncontrolledly) sitting'
Causative terg;)l tdrelg;)l ba-turelgdl tdrengdl
'make (someone) 'make (someone) 'currently making 'a making
sit' (completed) sit' (uncompleted) (someone) sit' (someone) sit'

One-and-a-half-syllabled: sabg 'to sleep', s&rbg 'to put to sleep'

Base S;)i:Jg segi:Jg b;)-segi:Jg seni:Jg, sdnegi:Jg

'sleep' (completed) 'sleep' 'currently sleeping' 'a sleeping'
(uncompleted)

Middle sai:Jg bd-sai:Jg sdnai:Jg

'fall asleep' (uncontrolledly) 'currently falling 'a falling asleep'
asleep'
Causative seri:Jg sdregi:Jg ba-suregi:Jg sdreni:Jg
'put (someone) to 'put (someone) to 'currently putting 'a putting (of
sleep' (completed) sleep' (someone) to sleep' someone) to
(uncompleted) sleep'

Two-syllabled: halab 'to go downstream'

Base halab ba-halab hdnalab

'go downstream' 'currently going 'a going
downstream' downstream'

114 Orang Asli languages

 Word structure and morphology 'to sit down uncontrolledly', sabg 'to sleep' -> sabg 'to
fall asleep'. (The middle voice in -a- can carry other
Although one-syllabled roots are frequent in Aslian
related meanings as well, such as 'collective', 'reflexive'
languages, the languages as such are not monosyllabic.
or 'reciprocal' action-just like the prefix ber- in Standard
Many roots are two-syllabled, with a full vowel in the pre-
Malay.)
syllable: Mintil kanit 'small', Semai sumaac 'to boil over'.
Derivational elements include the infix -r- and its pre-
Words of this kind are generally rare in Mon-Khmer
fix partner tar-, which form causatives: SE:gbg 'to sleep' ->
languages, and Aslian has here retained a feature that has
siJrE:gbg 'to put (someone) to sleep' (imperfective); giJl 'to
been lost in the more northern members of the family.
sit' -> tE:rgal 'to seat (someone) down' (perfective). Very
Much more common, and more typically Mon-Khmer,
common is the infix -n-, which derives nouns from verbs:
are one-and-a-half-syllabled (sesquisyllabic) roots, with a
gabag j:o sing' -> ganabag 'a singsong'; ccr 'to slice' ->
consonant cluster in the pre-syllable. For convenience,
canE:r 'a knife'. The proclitic bar-, which changes shape
these are often written with a non-phonemic iJ, although
according to what follows it, has both inflectional and
other half-vowels sometimes occur in this position: Sabiim
derivational properties; it is probably an old borrowing
kiJd;)y 'wife', Jah Hut santa? 'tail', Temiar giJt;)h 'spit',
from Malay. With verb stems, bar- forms the progressive
Semai bihiip 'blood', Semelai muhul 'sweet'. (Phonemi-
aspect (like the ber- of colloquial Malay): ba-gdgal 'to be
cally, these words are kd;)y, snta?, gt;)h, bhiip and mhul.)
sitting'; with nouns, it derives verbs: lE:h 'wife' -> bar-lE:h
Longer words occur too, usually incorporating both full
'to be married'.
and half syllables: Temiar CQI)kiJW;);)j '[kind of bird]',
Other Aslian languages display similar morphological
Semaq Beri SiJmarolj 'neck'. Such words, however, usually
features, but often with different formative elements. Very
contain more than one morpheme, being the result of
common are causatives in p-: Jah Hut ciE:k 'to sleep' ->
agglutinative processes of various kinds. For example, the
piJciE:k 'to put to sleep', Kintaq ci? 'to eat' -> pici? 'to
Temiar phonological word kiJ?am-ba-tordhawal 'You-two
feed'. Several other formatives are found in more than one
will be making (it) come out' contains six morphemes:
Aslian language, but there is no room to explore them
kiJ?a- 'you two', -m- 'intentive', ba- 'progressive', tar-
further here. One feature, though, does deserve special
'causative', hawal 'come out', and INCOPYFlXATION (hiJwal
mention, namely the syncretic use of certain formatives for
-> hdwal) 'imperfective'. The first three morphemes are
what at first sight seem to be incompatible functions.
clitics, the fourth and sixth are affixes.
The Temiar middle-voice infix -a- reappears as the
As this last example illustrates, Aslian word-formation
'singular' formative in some half-dozen human nouns: taa?
proceeds by the addition of prefixes and infixes to the root
'old (male)', tE:?taa? 'old men', tataa? 'old man'. But in
or stem. Proclitics (and sometimes postclitics), more
the closely related Lanoh language the same infix forms
loosely attached, are also common in some of the lan-
the plural: lit;)w 'young man' -> lat;)w 'young men'. In
guages. Suffixes never occur, except in occasional modem
Northern Aslian languages, the compound infix -ra-,
borrowings from Malay. The various word-building
joining -r- and -a- together, forms the plural of human
morphemes are added for grammatical reasons (inflection)
nouns: Mendriq kadah 'young woman' -> karadah 'young
and to generate new words (derivation). The Temiar verb
women'.
paradigm (Figure 4)-probably the most elaborate and
The infix -n- is especially striking in this regard, as its
productive of any Mon-Khmer language-illustrates both
range of meanings across the various languages almost
of these processes. 19
defies analysis:
Here the main inflectional device is 'incopyfixation',
a partial ;eduplication in which the final consonant of the Jah Hut: kat;)? 'daylight' -> kant;)? 'day (as a unit of
stem is copied to an earlier position in the word as an time)'
infix: siJbg -> SE:gbg 'to sleep', sE:rbg -> siJrE:gbg 'to put Lanoh: SiJma? 'person', cf. Temiar scnma? 'people
to sleep'. (The process is easier to follow if written (in counting)'
phonemically, omitting all the predictable vowels: sbg -> Kintaq: ?ilay 'to bathe (perfective), -> ?anlay 'to
sgbg, srbg -> srgbg.) With monosyllabic verb roots, bathe (imperfective)'
both the initial and final consonants are replicated: gal -> Temiar: m;);)? 'parent's elder sister' -> man;);)? 'hus-
gclgiJl 'to sit' (phonemically, glgal). In Aslian. la~guages band's elder sister'
generally, variants of this pattern of reduplIcatIOn are Semai: bah 'parent's younger brother (in direct ad-
employed to ascribe an imperfective (,uncompleted') or dress)' -> manah 'parent's younger brother (refer-
continuative ('still doing') meaning to the verb. However, ential), .
many of the languages do not use it as productively or with Semelai:jalu? 'pig' -> janalu? 'damned pig!'
such phonological regularity as Temiar. A further inflec-
tion in Temiar, as well as Lanoh, is the infix -a- used for Aslian grammar and vocabulary are as rich, subtle and
forming the middle voice. This indicates that the subject of elaborate as those of any other languages. Unfortunately,
the verb also undergoes what it does: gal 'to sit' -> gagal there is no space here for further illustration.

Orang Asli languages 115

Aslian languages and Southeast Asian
culture-history
Aslian provides a valuable window onto wider Peninsular
and Southeast Asian issues, by showing that the region's
history and prehistory is much more complicated than
usually recognised. If there were no Aslian to suggest
otherwise, historians, linguists, geographers and others
would persist in the very simple view of earlier Peninsular
history that is still widely current. The evidence suggests
that the Peninsula's current relatively uniform Malay
linguistic character has been brought about by intensive
cultural and demographic engineering. The Aslian
languages in particular enable historical work to be done
on this problem even in the absence of written sources.
Let me end this chapter, then, with some exemplifica-
tions of the claim that if Orang Asli languages were to
disappear, so also would a major resource for uncovering
Southeast Asian culture-history. The analysis brings
together my own investigations of Peninsular ethnology
with Gerard Diffloth's studies of Mon-Khmer historical
phonology. (These examples also appear in Benjamin
1997. For further examples, dealing with lexical areas
other than ethnonymy, see Dentan 1999, Benjamin in press
b.)
The Semai and Temiar word salaay 'swidden',
and the ethnonym Semelai
There are good reasons for thinking that the ethnonym
Semelai is formed of Khmer elements. The first published
account of the Semelais under that name (Blagden 1906:
502) reports that Pahang Malays referred to them as
Semilai. That this was a term used by Malays is confirmed
by Evans (1923: 264, footnote): 'I heard that there were
"Orang Semlai"-a term commonly in use among Malay-
speaking groups to denote those whose dialect belongs to
the Sakai group-far up the Rompin river.' According to
Gerard Diffloth (personal communication), the form
Semilai would correspond to the Semelai pronunciation
s;)miylay, which would mean 'land clearers': *salay
'cleared land' + -m- 'agent' + reduplication (siylay).
Morphologically, this pattern and the constituent mor-
phemes would fit both Khmer and Aslian.
The word solaay (with a long vowel) is currently
found only in Semai and Temiar, however, where it means
'swidden' (i.e., a 'dry' temporary hill farm), in Cambodian
(Khmer), where slaay means 'newly cleared land'
(Aymonier 1874: 427), and in a few other Mon-Khmer
languages spoken much further north (Gerard Diffloth,
personal communication). This suggests that Aslian solaay
is either a Khmer loan or an ancient Mon-Khmer word that
has disappeared from most of the other languages of that
family. Although the word is no longer found in Semelai
(where it would take the form *sulay), the ethnonym itself
is evidence that the word was formerly present in that
language-or possibly in the language of Khmer-spe ..king
1 16 Orang Asli languages
visitors to Pahang. (The possibility of other such Khmer
influences on the Orang Asli of Pahang is discussed by
Collings (1949b).) These data must have some bearing on
the earlier history of farming in the Peninsula, especially if
it turns out that salaay is part of the original word-stock
that Temiar and Semai inherited from Proto-Mon-Khmer.
That would suggest an originally northern mainland source
for farming among the Orang Asli.
The Orang Asli ethnonyms Jab Hut and Jakun
These are the names of two of the larger Orang Asli
groups of Pahang. 'Jah Hut'-more properly Jah Het-
literally means 'people no', i.e., 'the people who say hot
for "no'''. Diffloth (1984: 13-14) sees Jah Hutjah 'people,
person' as part of the generally Mon-Khmer word stock of
the Aslian languages: cf. Mon Jwh 'person, human
being ... ' (Shorto 1971: 133), Nyah Kur Jwh 'numeral
classifier for humans; prefix in ethnonym' (Diffloth 1984:
118). I see no reason to argue with this view. It is neverthe-
less interesting that jah is not a common word in Mon-
Khmer, being found only in Monic, Aslian and Nyaheun
(an Eastern Mon-Khmer language of southern Laos). In
Aslian its only normal occurrence is in Jah Hut. It is just
possible, therefore, that the Malayan jah is not part of the
ancestral Aslian word-stock, but a loan from Mon, perhaps
from the times when people from further north were
interested in the gold-bearing areas of central Pahang.
These are more likely to have been speakers of Mon (or
Khmer) than of any other language. The Jah Hut live along
the middle reaches of the Pahang river, which archaeologi-
cal and ethnological evidence suggests was part of the
major north-south trade route in earlier times.
One other Peninsular corresponding form of the term
jah is to be found in the first syllable of 'Jakun', the name
long applied to the Aboriginal Malays of Johor and parts
of Pahang, by others and by the people themselves.
Although the Jakuns today are speakers of their own
dialects of Malay (see, e.g., Collins 1985), the word Jakun
is compounded of two Mon-Khmer elements, both of
which are found in the Aslian languages as well as in Mon.
Wilkinson's dictionary entry on 'Jakun' (1959, volume I:
437) reads
Proto-Malayan nomad; Hikayat Abdullah 276-284. A
term of Indo-Chinese origin, jah-kun = orang laki-laki
(man). Used (Negeri Sembilan, Pahang) in contr. to
settled proto-Malays, who are (Pahang) rayat or
(Negeri Sembilan) biduanda. But the use of the term
waris jakun of a ruling biduanda family in Rembau
indicates that the distinction between biduanda and
jakun is not one of race.' Thus, Hikayat Abdullah
would date it back to at least 1820 'so
The ja- element is presumably the same as the Jah
('person') in Jah Hut. However, if the -kun element does
indeed mean 'male', as Wilkinson suggests, it would
derive from the Southern Aslian word kOjl, not kon or kun.
On the other hand, kOjl would indeed become kun or kon if
absorbed into Malay, which lacks final -ny.
But an alternative, and preferable, etymology for kun
is available (Shorto 1971: 53):
Old Mon, Middle Mon kon 'child, etc.-person to
whom one stands in loco parentis'; also: 'member of
ethnic or other social group' .
Kun and Kon do in fact occur as single words: the Orang
Seletar of Singapore's north coast, who were still tribal
and pagan up to mid-1980's, and who spoke their own
dialect of Malay, referred to themselves simply as Kun
(Carey 1975: 279) or as Kon Seletar (Mariam Ali, in
press).
The word '}akun' thus implies that Mon-Khmer
speakers extended further south in the past than they do at
present-perhaps, as Adelaar suggests (1995: 87-91),
even as far as Sarawak. The Southern Aslian languages
have for centuries been undergoing replacement by Malay
from the south and the coasts. The twentieth century end-
product of this process is a series of riverine Malay
communities. There seems no doubt therefore that there
has long been a process of culture-change in which
Southern Aslian speakers became Jakuns, who sometimes
in tum became Malays. Linehan, for example, reports
(1936: 240-241) that 'The Jakun headmen Pa Usoh of
Kuala Serai and Pa Mehat of Kuala Merba [both in the
Bebar valley] claim descent from the "Siamese", or pre-
Malaccan inhabitants of Pahang.' This could perhaps be
interpreted as the oral memory of an Aslian-speaking
ancestry by people who now speak a Malay dialect, for
which other evidence exists (Benjamin 1997: 110).
On the other hand, Jakun (or something like it) may
simply have been the word used by Mon-Khmer-speaking
miners when referring to the local population.
The label Senoi
Various authors (including myself), as well as the JOA, use
the label 'Senoi' to refer--quite inconsistently-to certain
Orang Asli populations. The word derives from the Temiar
sen?:J:Jy or Semai ScJl}?:J:Jy, both of which mean 'human
being, people, person'. But that is not the end of the
etymological story, for according to some recent findings
by Gerard Diffloth the word appears to be a Khmer loan
that originally meant something quite different.
In the Khmer currently spoken in Surin province,
Thailand, sCI!J?vvy--dearly a cognate of the Aslian 'Senoi'
words-means 'to be peevish, cry-baby', 'to be knowl-
edgeable, but unwilling to boast about it'. The word has
also been borrowed into Thai as sam?:J:JY, with the
meaning 'cry-baby'. Related to this is the Surin Khmer
expressive tas?:J:Jy s?:J:Jy 'to act slowly, unsure, insecure',
'preferring not to finish something for fear of doing it
wrong.' The reconstructible Khmer root must therefore be
*S?:J:Jy, with the basic meaning 'insecure'. These words are
not (as yet) found elsewhere, which suggests that in both
Thai and Aslian, they are loans from Khmer. In Khmer, an
infixed nasal, like the -m- of sam?:J:JY, indicates an
adversative, 'disapproving' meaning, quite appropriate
when calling someone a cry-baby. The Khmers therefore
presumably saw shyness as an undesirable quality. Judging
by the nasals nand !J that are still infixed into the Temiar
and Semai words, the Orang Asli seem to have accepted
the Khmers' description of them as shy-though they
presumably saw it as a desirable quality.
This reconstruction fits well with the trajectory of
Temiar and Semai history, in which flight deep into the
forest has been their normal response to slave-raiding and
other depradations. However, the fact that they now call
themselves by an originally Khmer word demonstrates that
the flight response was balanced by the continued
maintenance of relations with outsiders, for trade and other
pursuits. The dialectic of both having contact with
outsiders and shying away from such contact delineates
the overall pattern of Temiar and Semai history.
The phrase 'kui kui' in the Sejarah Melayu
In my paper on Kelantan (Benjamin 1987: 141-142) I
discussed the phrase kui kui that appears in the Sejarah
Melayu as a foreign term for 'slowly' (Shellabear 1983:
74-75):
Maka katanya pada segala orang bergalah itu, 'Kwai,
kwai [7 kui, kui]" ertinya perlahan-lahan. Maka
datang sekarang ini jeram itu dinamai orang Jeram
Kwai [7 Kui, Koi].
He said to the people poling [the boat], 'Kwai, kwai [7
kui, kui]" which means slowly. Until today the rapids
are known as Jeram Kwai [7 Kui, Koi].2o
Shellabear (1896: 120) seems to have read the Jawi
(Arabo-Malay) form of the cited foreign word as kwai, but
it can just as legitimately be read as kui. Since the rapids
referred to in the Sejarah Melayu text are known today as
Jeram Koi, I have preferred the latter reading. Adi Haji
Taha has carried out some archaeological work near these
rapids, high on the Tembeling river. The site has indeed
yielded evidence of human habitation from Neolithic
times, or even earlier (Adi 1989: 50; see also Linehan
1951).
But we can carry the analysis further. In discussing the
meaning of kui kui in my earlier paper, I suggested a
generally Tai (the language family), though not specifically
Thai (the language), connection. However, I have since
been informed by Kirk Endicott, that by (a form strikingly
close to kui) is the ordinary Batek Nong word for 'slowly'.
It seems likely then that the Malaccans in the Sejarah
Melayu story were poled upstream by Batek people-
which is quite credible, given what is known of the history
of that area. (Of course, this does not preclude the
Orang Asli languages 117
possibility that the Batek word was itself originally a Tai
loan. If so, it would not be the only example of Tai lexical
elements in Aslian.)
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Notes
1. Readers requiring more data on the Aslian languages should
consult the author's detailed paper on the subject (Benja-
min, in press b) and also the other chapters on the subject in
this volume. For data on the Aslian languages of southern
Thailand, see the chapter by Bishop and Peterson in this
volume. and under Bauer, Bishop, Bishop & Peterson, and
Phaiboon in the References to this chapter.
2. The ideas presented in this section derive mainly from Hale
1992a, 1992b, Diamond 1993 and Krauss 1992.
3. As a linguistic category, 'Malayic' includes Malay in the
narrow sense (with its many dialects), but it also includes
some other closely related languages, such as Minang, Ser-
awai, and Iban (Adelaar 1992). I use the term Malayic here,
rather than Malay, mainly to account for the possibility that
Duano (,Orang Kuala', 'Desin Dolaq'), which is not a Ma-
lay dialect, might nevertheless turn out to be a Malayic
language.
4. The linguistic situation is sometimes misunderstood by
officers of the Department of Orang Asli Affairs (JOA)-
despite the fact that they are required to pass examinations
in an Orang Ash language in order to attain confirmation in
their posts. For example, in a JOA press release (Ikram
1997) it was incorrectly asserted that all the indigenes of
Malaysia spoke Austronesian languages and that this made
them all 'Malays' in some sense or other. The distinctive
linguistic, and hence historicaL heritage of the Aslian
speakers-whose languages are Mon-Khmer, not
Austronesian-was thereby silenced by the agency best
placed to have done something about it. (The fusion of
'Austronesian' with 'Malay' only compounded the error.)
5. For discussion of this possibility, see Benjamin 1987, Bauer
1992.
6. 'Semang' is used here as a label for a distinctive social-
organisational pattern, and not as an ethnonym. The term is
roughly coterminous with 'Negritos' as used by the JOA
and some other writers, but it is best to avoid biologically
coloured terms in a linguistic or sociological context. Both
'Semang' and 'Negritos' exclude the Chewongs, who
nevertheless speak a Northern Aslian language.
7. This 'southern' view is not new: it was also held by such
colonial-period scholars as C. 0 Blagden and R. J. Wilkin-
son. For up-to-date accounts of the early history of Malay
and its closest relatives, see Adelaar 1992 and Collins 1998.
8. The contrast I am drawing here between Semang, Senoi and
Malayic societal traditions, and between 'immanent',
'dialectical' and 'transcendental' modes of consciousness
has been discussed more fully elsewhere. On Malayan
ethnology, see Benjamin 1985a, 1997.
9. Several ethnographers have nevertheless gathered reliable
lexical data on various Aslian languages, employing
phonologically accurate transcriptions. Among these are
Kirk Endicott (1979) on Batek Deq, Rosemary Gianno
(1990, especially pages 158-216) on Semelai, Christian
Vogt (so far unpublished) on Batek Nong, Lye Tuck-Po
(1997) on Batek Iga', Marina Roseman (1991, especially
pages 185-189) on Temiar, and Sue Jennings (1995) also
on Temiar. They all persuaded their publishers to employ an
accurately phonemic orthography, employing IPA-derived
symbols where necessary.
10. Some authors (especially Burenhult, Bishop and Peterson,
and Schebesta before them, all working mainly on Northern
Aslian languages) employ a slightly different set of sym-
bols, based on closer adherence to the European norm of
phonetic transcription. They write Iyl as Ij/, and Ij! as Ij/.
This can be confusing for non-linguists, and also for lin-
guists untrained in the European tradition of phonetics.
Some authors also employ the symbol : for Central Aslian
long vowels: la:1 for laa!. I myself formerly employed a
macron for long vowels: Ia! for laa!; and a Polish hook for
nasal vowels: 141 for lill.
The latest versions of certain standard computer
typefaces, such as Times New Roman, already contain many
of these symbols. In a few years, when the use of Unicode-
encoded fonts has become general, all of the special
symbols will be available on every new computer as a
matter of course.
11. In accordance with normal linguistic usage, I I indicates
phonemic transcription of the phonological structure and
[ 1indicates phonetic transcription of the pronunciation.
12. On CD: Life Records HSP 01079-2. On audio cassette: Life
records HSP 01079-4.
13. There is nothing wrong with researching Malay linguis-
tics-I do it myselfl-but it should not be at the expense of
working on lesser-known languages. Linguists have a key
responsibility in this regard.
14. The contributions of such earlier researchcrs as Blagden,
Wilkinson, Schebesta and Carey are omitted here, but are
listed in the References. The same applies to some of the
more recent publications, including the two dictionaries by
Means et al., that contain valuable materiaL but which are
not reliable from a linguistic point of view. These publica-
tions are all discussed in Benjamin, in press b. For a brief
history of the earlier period in the study of Aslian lan-
guages, see also Benjamin 1976a: 38-43.
15. In her ethnographic study of the Semelais (1990), Gianno
also provides an accessible account of Semelai phonology
and morphology (pp. 158-163).
16. These programmes, which commenced more than 35 years
ago, are now broadcast in Semai and Temiar on Channel
Seven of Radio Malaysia for several hours from 3 p.m.
daily. The frequencies are 6025 KHz (short wave, nation-
ally) and 102.5 MHz (FM, Kuala Lumpur).
17. These examples give substance to the point urged by
Collins in his recent book (1998): that the Malay language
Orang Asli languages 121
 has always displayed a broader social and linguistic spread
than just the Orang Melayu community. Its sociolinguistic
profile is therefore more like that of Latin in Medieval
Europe than that of English at the same period.
18. The standard phonetic terms 'high', 'low', 'back', 'front'.
etc., refer to the position of the highest point of the tongue
within the mouth.
19. This represents a significant re-analysis of the semantic
organisation of the Temiar verb as presented in my earlier
account (Benjamin 1975b), which has been the subject of
discussion by several writers working on comparative lin-
guistic morphology.
20. I thank Liaw Yock Fang and Syed Farid Alatas for their
help with the text of Sejarah Melayu.

122 Orang Asli languages