Dayak Mualang


Mualang are an indigenous people of West Kalimantan from the Dayak group and a sub-ethnic of the Iban people. They speak the Mualang language and they are mostly concentrated in areas in the Sekadau Regency and Sintang Regency of West Kalimantan, Indonesia. The specific districts where the Mualang people live include:
  1. Belitang Hilir district, Sekadau
  2. Belitang district, Sekadau
  3. Belitang Hulu district, Sekadau
  4. Sepauk, Sintang and its surrounding region

    Language

The language spoken by the Mualang people belongs to the Ibanic languages branch along with other Ibanic dialects such as Kantuk, Bugao, Desa, Seberuang, Ketungau and Sebaruk. These dialects mainly differ from one another in their pronunciations of specific phonemes. For example, words that end with "i" can be pronounced as "e" or "y" where "kediri" becomes "kedire", "rari" becomes "rare", "inai" becomes "inay", and "pulai" becomes "pulay". These words still carry the same meaning eventhough they are pronounced differently. These dialects also have some lexical variation between them.

Culture

Traditional Folk Song