The use of Coastal Kadazan has been declining due to the tenure of
Mustapha Harun as Sabah Chief Minister whose government
enforced Bahasa Malaysia while suppressing other vernacular languages with the objective of assimilation and cementing allegiance to
Malaysian federal government; and by the use of
English by
missionaries, which was done through the method of
language shift enforced by the work of both the colonial and federal governments. The state of Sabah has introduced policies to prevent this decline, which is also happening to other native Sabahan languages. This included the policy of using Kadazan and other indigenous languages in public schools. Efforts have also been done to allow the language to become official in the state. Coastal Kadazan has adopted many loanwords, particularly from other northern Borneo indigenous languages and also
Malay. Kadazan extensively employs the voiced alveolar sibilant fricative in their native lexicons, a feature found in only a few Austronesian languages. The
Tsou and
Paiwan languages also have these particular elements, spoken by the
Taiwanese aborigines. Another language is
Malagasy spoken in the island of
Madagascar thousands of miles away off the coast of Africa. Coastal Kadazan is highly
mutually intelligible with
Central Dusun and is considered by many to be the same language. == History ==