Sarawak Murut Dialects

Abstract

We now come to the discussion of the literature concerning a group of dialects usually indicated by the name Murut. This term shows again the confusion which is created by the use of general designation like river people, hill people, etc., when one wishes to establish real distinctions. When one studies the available linguistic material it becomes clear that the dialects of the groups qualified as Murut, i.e. “hill”, belong to two clearly distinguishable groups. On anthropological grounds Needham arrives at a division into “a people or group of peoples” which extends “across interior Borneo about the line 4° North” which he considers as the northernmost of the ‘middle Borneo group of peoples”, and a group of peoples which he qualifies by means of a linguistic criterion as belonging to “Adriani’s Philippine language group” (152). For lack of a better name Needham indicates these two groups by the names of “Sarawak Murut” and “North Borneo Murut”, in agreement with the terminology already used earlier by Pollard (153) and Hudson Southwell (154); we shall also adopt these designations here.