VARIANT MELANAU SARAWAK: REVIEW IN MELANAU IGAN

The paper discusses one variant Melanau (VM) in Sarawak, namely variants Melanau Igan (VM IGN). The objective in this paper is to evaluate and reorganize aspects of phonology which has yet to get clarification on a number of studies on VM IGN especially in determining the amount of phoneme inventory. Therefore, this study aimed to affect aspects of phonetics and phonology to describe how the phonological system VM IGN with displays spread vowel, diphthong and see the presence of alternation in this VM IGN. The approach used to achieve the objectives of this study is the structural approach. The results prove that the VM IGN has 6 vowel phonemes, namely / i, u , e, o, Ə, a /, have five diphthongs, ie /-oj, -aw, -aj, -ej, -uj / and 21 consonant phonemes which consist of seven explosive consonants /p, b, t, d, k, g, ?/, two africate consonants /t∫ , dʒ/, four fricative consonants /s, c, ᶌ, h/, four nasal consonants /m, n,n, ῆ/, a vibration consonant / r /, a lateral consonant / l / and two semi-vowel consonants / w, j /. Therefore, it is hoped that this study will solve all the problems that have arisen in the past studies and to preserve the identity of the Melanau Igan heritage through language.