Bajau

See also: bajau

English

Alternative forms

• Badjao
• Badjau
• Badjaw
• Bajaw

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

Bajau (plural Bajaus or Bajau)

1. A member of an indigenous ethnic group of the southern Philippines.
   • 1905, United States. Bureau of the Census, Census of the Philippine Islands‎^[1], volume 1, page 565:

     The Bajaus, or sea gypsies, live in boats, their occupation being fishing.

   • 1969, James W. Gould, The United States and Malaysia‎^[2], page 30:

     The largest tribe is the 60,000-member Bajau. The Bajaus were once sea nomads and pirates.

   • 2011, Daniel White, Ron Emmons, Jennifer Eveland, Jen Lin-Liu, Frommer's Southeast Asia, page 569,

     The Bajau are a group of seafarers who migrated from the Philippines only a couple hundred years ago. The Bajau on the eastern coast of Sabah carry on their traditional connection to the water, living as sea gypsies and coming to shore only for burials. On the west coast, however, many Bajau have settled on dry land as farmers and cattle raisers.

Synonyms

• (member of a people of the southern Philippines): sea gypsy

Proper noun

Bajau

1. The language spoken by the Bajau people of the southern Philippines, part of the Sama–Bajaw language group.
   • 1937, W. F. Schneeberger, A Short Vocabulary of the Banggai and Bajau Language.
   • 2007, Mark T. Miller, A Grammar of West Coast Bajau, PhD Thesis.

See also

• bdl, bdr, sjm (ISO 639-3 language codes)

Anagrams

• Abuja