Belait people
Bruneian ethnic group
The Belait people are a Bruneian ethnic group native to Belait District. They traditionally speak the Belait language. They are predominantly Muslim. They are officially one of the seven ethnic groups which make up the Bruneian Malay race.
Origin
The Belait people originated from the merger between two ethnic groups, namely the Belait jati (i.e. the 'native' Belait) and the Lemeting or Meting. The latter was originally native to Tinjar River, a tributary of the Baram River in Sarawak, Malaysia; they later migrated to the area of, and eventually integrated with, the 'native' Belait.
Language
The Belait language, the traditional language of the Belait people, is an Austronesian language within the sub-group Malayo-Polynesian. The language is considered "seriously" endangered; it is claimed that there are "almost no younger speakers".
Notable people
Kefli Razali (born 1940), naval officer
Yusoff Abdul Hamid (born 1949), politician and diplomat
Norsiah Abdul Gapar (born 1952), a recipient of the S.E.A. Write Award 2009
Suyoi Osman (born 1952), politician and minister
Mustappa Sirat (born 1957), a politician and minister
Rozan Yunos (born 1963), a civil servant and writer
Abu Sufian Ali (born 1966), diplomat
Zulkhairy Razali (born 1996), footballer who plays striker for Indera SC
Maizurah Abdul Rahim (born 1999), sprinter
Abdul Hariz Herman (born 2000), footballer for MS ABDB
Jefri Syafiq Ishak (born 2002), footballer for Kuala Belait FC
Shari Ahmad, military officer
Salleh Bostaman, businessman and politician
References
CitationsSources
Hughes-Hallett, H. (July 1938).
“Belait people” enters the record as bruneian ethnic group. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Belait, people and Bruneian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Belait people” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.