A Preliminary look at phonetic variation in the vowels of Brunei Malay

Abstract

This paper presents some of the initial findings of a much more far-reaching project being conducted by myself and two colleagues at the University of Brunei Darussalam on language use in that country, 1 Before 'describing the vowel phonemes of the language and types of phonetic variation which occur during their production, it is necessary to define exactly what is meant by Brunei Malay. Bruneians themselves generally use the term "Brunei Malay" to refer to the prestigious variety of informal Malay spoken in the country, in contrast to other dialects of Malay, such as Kampong Ayer and Kadayan, on the one hand and also in contrast to the formal variety of the language, which they call "Standard Malay". I will avoid use of the term "standard" in reference to the language which I am describing for two reasons. First of all, when addressing an international audience, one is faced with the question of which standard is meant. Standard Malaysian and Standard Indonesian differ clearly from each other in terms of Phonology, lexicon and even morphological and syntactic rules.