ISO 639-3 ttg | Native speakers 17,000 (2006) Glottolog tuto1241 | |
Language family AustronesianMalayo-PolynesianNorth BorneanNorth SarawakanBerawan–Lower BaramLower BaramKiput–BelaitTutong | ||
The Tutong language, also known as Tutong 2, is a language spoken by 16,600 people in Brunei. It is the main language of the Tutong people, the majority ethnic group in the Tutong District of Brunei.
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Classification
Tutong is an Austronesian language and belongs to the Rejang-Baram group of languages spoken in Brunei as well as Kalimantan, Indonesia, and Sarawak, Malaysia. Tutong is related to the Belait language and roughly 54% of the words come from a common root.
Language Use
Today, many speakers of Tutong are shifting away from the traditional language and code-mix or code-shift with Brunei Malay, Standard Malay and English. The language has been given a vitality rating of 2.5 based on a scale of 0-6 that uses the measures of (1) rate of transmission to future generations, (2) level of official support and (3) geographical concentration of speakers. This means it is considered endangered.
Nonetheless, there is interest in revitalizing the language. Since 2012, a module has been taught in Tutong at Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD). Similarly, the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (Brunei's Language Agency) published a Tutong-Malay, Malay-Tutong dictionary in 1991 and a word list of several Brunei languages in 2011.