Vowel Length

According to DBPB (2006), there is a three-way length contrast in final vowels, depending on whether the word has /r/ in Standard Malay. In masa [masaˀ] (‘time’), for which the Standard Malay masa has no /r/, the final /a/ is short; in basa [basa:] (‘large’), for which the Standard Malay besar has a final /r/, the second vowel is longer; and in utaa [utaa] (‘north’), in which Standard Malay utara has an intervocalic /r/, the final vowels represent two syllables, and the word might phonetically be shown as [utaːː].

Unfortunately, the orthography adopted by DBPB (2006) does not distinguish between the first and second of these, so banda [bandaˀ] (‘goods’) (Standard Malay benda) and banda [banda:] (‘town’) (Standard Malay bandar) are written identically, even though the first has a short final vowel while the second has a longer final vowel.

In the phonemic transcription of The North Wind and the Sun passage, monosyllabic long final /a/ is shown as /a:/, so bana [banaː] (‘true’) is shown phonemically as /bana:/, and we distinguish between /a/, /aː/ and /aa/.