Mah Meri, also known as Besisi, Cellate, Hmaʼ Btsisiʼ, Maʼ Betisek, and pejoratively as Orang Sabat,[2] is an Austroasiatic language spoken in the Malay Peninsula.
[1] Mah Meri is the only remaining Aslian language spoken in a coastal area (on the coasts of Negeri Sembilan and Selangor) and its speaker population is 3,675 as recorded at the Orang Asli Museum in Gombak.
dṳkhousenaleʔolddṳk naleʔhouse old'old house'lɘmɔlmanhoroʔoldkethatlɘmɔl horoʔ keman old that'that old man'haʔLOCmbɘriforesthaʔ mbɘriLOC forest'in the forest'For transitive clauses, Mah Meri generally follows an Agent-Verb-Object (AVO) order as shown in example (4), but a Verb-Agent-Object (VAO) order is more common during natural discourse as shown in example (5).
'For intransitive clauses in Mah Meri, both Subject-Verb (SV) and Verb-Subject (VS) orders are possible as shown in examples (6) and (7) respectively.
Distributive < l > 'DISTR' The prefix sɘ is attached to the initial constituent of reduplicated bases to express iteration.