Introduction

Abstract

Among the four large islands of Indonesia it is Borneo which has been least studied from a linguistic point of view. Only very few, more extensive linguistic descriptions and collections of texts have been published. Other published data consist mainly of incidental remarks of explorers and travellers, who in their works occasionally also included wordlists, terms for various institutions and sometimes a few set phrases or isolated words. The most important contribution to the knowledge of many Bornean languages is due to missionary effort. The Bible translations and other translations of christian literature, valuable when no original texts are available, are for many languages often practically the only source of information.