INHERITED VOCABULARY OF PROTO-AUSTRONESIAN IN THE BANJARESE LANGUAGE

This paper attempts to present a reflection of the Proto-Austronesian language in the Banjarese language (BL). Used in the South, Central Kalimantan and East Kalimantan, it is was a lingua franca of trade in the past. Almost all Dayak speech communities are have knowledge of it. In addition, it is also spoken in certain regions of Sumatra, including Tembilahan (Riau) and Sabak Bernam (Malaysia). As a language covering wide area of users, it has many dialects and sub-dialects. Linguists still have different opinions in terms ofthe BL dialect. Hapip, Suryadikara and Durasid state that BL consists of two dialects.They are the Hulu or the upperstream dialect and the Kuala or the down-stream dialect. Meanwhile, Kawi claims that there are three Banjarese dialects namely the Hulu Dialect, Kuala dialect, and Bukit or the mountain-range dialect. BL belongs to the family of the Austronesian language. The question is: How are the elements of the Proto-Austronesian (PA) language reflected in Banjarese? In relation to thequestion, this research is done to describe the reflection of the PA in BL using comparison method and was done by arranging a set of characteristics of the Banjarese vocabulary that correspond the PA etimon. The research result shows that: (a) generally the PA etimony are represented unimpairedly in the BL, (b) the PA’s phonemes are inherited in the BL without any changes, (c) the reflection forms of some words shows some changes; however these changes seem to be sporadic; (d) the phonetic changes tend to refer to the similarities of the articulatory circumference;and (e) not all of the PA etimony is reflected in the BL.