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Badjao

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Philippines/bɐˈd͡ʒaʊ̯/

Badjao is the alternative spelling of Bajau.

Meaning of Bajau

Noun

Bajau (plural Bajaus or Bajau)

  1. An island in Indonesia (part of the Riau Islands) with the coordinate location 3°7'31.84"N, 106°18'38.30"E.
  2. The indigenous people native to Bajau island (part of modern-day Indonesia), these ethnic group nowadays predominantly inhabit the Bajau island and its adjacent regions in Indonesia and also expanded to the southern Philippines.
    • The Bajaus, or sea gypsies, live in boats, their occupation being fishing.1905, United States. Bureau of the Census, Census of the Philippine Islands, volume 1, page 565
    Synonyms:
    sea gypsy

See all 3 meanings of Bajau

Forms of Badjao

pluralBadjaos
alternative form (obsolete)Bajao

Origin of Badjao

Spelled as such around the early 20th century to avoid confusion with Spanish J, which the modern Spanish pronunciation is /h/. The spelling of "Badjao" emerged to ensure English J is pronounced as /d͡ʒ/.

Questions about Badjao

What is Badjao the alternative spelling of?
Badjao is the alternative spelling of Bajau.
How do you pronounce Badjao?
Badjao is pronounced /bɐˈd͡ʒaʊ̯/ (Philippines).

Words near Badjao in the dictionary

  1. baditude
  2. Badiu
  3. Badiwan
  4. Badja
  5. Badjalang
  6. Badjao
  7. Badjaos
  8. badjoe
  9. badjoes
  10. badjoo
  11. badjoos

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Badjao (page history and authors); Bajau (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “Badjao.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/badjao. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.