Acehnese language

As of 1988, "Acehnese" is the modern English name spelling and the bibliographical standard, and Acehnese people use the spelling "Acehnese" when writing in English. "Achinese" is an antiquated spelling of the English language tradition. "Atjehnese" is the Dutch spelling and an outdated Indonesian one. The spelling "Achehnese" originates from a 1906 English translation of the Dutch language Studien over atjesche klank- en schriftleer. Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 35.346-442 by Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, 1892. In Acehnese the language is called Basa/Bahsa Acèh. In Indonesian it is called Bahasa Aceh.[2]

Acehnese belongs to the Malayo-Polynesian branch of Austronesian. Acehnese's closest relatives are the other Chamic languages, which are principally spoken in Vietnam and Cambodia. The closest relative of the Chamic family is the Malay language family, which includes languages also spoken in Sumatra such as Minangkabau as well as the national language, Indonesian.

Paul Sidwell notes that Acehnese likely has an Austroasiatic substratum.[3]

Regencies in Aceh with Acehnese language majority

Acehnese language is spoken primarily in coastal region of Aceh. This language is spoken in 13 regencies and 4 cities in Aceh, those are:

City

1. Sabang
2. Banda Aceh
3. Lhokseumawe
4. Langsa

North-East Coast

1. Aceh Besar
2. Pidie
3. Pidie Jaya
4. Bireuen
5. Aceh Utara
6. Aceh Timur (except in 3 subdistricts, Serba Jadi, Peunaron and Simpang Jernih where Gayo language is spoken)
7. Aceh Tamiang (Mostly Manyak Payet and Kuala Simpang subdistrict, the rest of the district speaks a variety of the Malay language)

West-South Coast

1. Aceh Jaya
2. West Aceh
3. Nagan Raya
4. Southwest Aceh (except in subdistrict Susoh where Aneuk Jamee language is spoken)
5. South Aceh (mixed with Kluet language and Aneuk Jamee language)

Bilingual sign about tsunami warning in Indonesian and Acehnese

Oral monophthong vowels in Acehnese are shown in the table below.[4]

In addition to the modern 26 letter basic Latin alphabet, Acehnese uses the supplementary letters è, é, ë, ô, and ö, making a total of 31 letters in its orthography.

Hikayat Prang Sabi

The table below shows the Acehnese consonant phonemes and the range of their realizations.[5]

Notes:

• Syllable-final orthographic ⟨k⟩ always represents /ʔ/ save in certain recent loans
• /f/, /z/, and /ʃ/ are borrowed sounds, and are often replaced by ph, dh, and ch respectively
• The post-stopped nasals (orally released nasals) have been called "funny nasals".[6] They are distinct from the nasal-stop sequences /mb/, /nd/, /ɲɟ/, /ŋɡ/, e.g. in /banᵈa/ 'port' vs /mandum/ 'all'.[7]

Acehnese features a split ergative system. Intransitives that align with the agent of a transitive verb (Sa) always show agreement by a proclitic (1). Meanwhile, intransitives that align with the patient of a transitive verb (Sp) may optionally show agreement by an enclitic (2). Volitionality is the determining factor for whether an intransitive verb is Sa or Sp.[8]

(1)	Jih	ka=ji=jak.
	he	INCHOATIVE=3=go
	"He has gone."

(2)	Gopnyan	ka=saket=geuh.
	he	INCHOATIVE=sick=3
	"He is sick."

Formerly, the Acehnese language was written in an Arabic script called Jawoë or Jawi in the Malay language. The script is less common nowadays. Since colonization by the Dutch, the Acehnese language has been written in the Latin script, with the addition of supplementary letters. The additional letters are é, è, ë, ö and ô.[9] The sound /ɨ/ is represented by 'eu' and the sound /ʌ/ is represented by 'ö', respectively. The letter 'ë' is used exclusively to represent the schwa sound which forms the second part of diphthongs. The letters f, q, v, x, and z are only used in loanwords.

At least ten Achehnese dialects exist: Pasè, Peusangan, Matang, Pidië, Buëng, Banda, Daya, Meulabôh, Seunagan and Tunong.[12]

• 
  Hikayat Akhbarul Karim
• 
  Hikayat Banta Beuransah

• Al-Harbi, Awwad Ahmad Al-Ahmadi (2003), "Acehnese coda condition: An optimality-theoretic account" (PDF), Umm Al-Qura University Journal of Educational and Social Sciences and Humanities, 15 (1): 9–21
• Pillai, Stefanie; Yusuf, Yunisrina Qismullah (2012), "An instrumental analysis of acehnese oral vowels" (PDF), Language and Linguistics, 13 (6): 1029–1050
• Asyik, Abdul Gani (1982), "The agreement system in Acehnese" (PDF), Mon–Khmer Studies, 11: 1–33, archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-06-05
• Durie, Mark (1988a). "The So-Called Passive of Acehnese". Language. 64 (1): 104–113. doi:10.2307/414788. JSTOR 414788.
• Legate, Julie Anne (2012). "Subjects in Acehnese and the Nature of the Passive" (PDF). Language. 88 (3): 495–525. doi:10.1353/lan.2012.0069. JSTOR 23251862.
• Thurgood, Graham (2007), The Historical Place of Acehnese: The Known and the Unknown (PDF), archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-01-19

• Asyik, Abdul Gani (1987). A contextual grammar of Acehnese sentences (PDF) (PhD thesis). The University of Michigan. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-06-05. Retrieved 2010-12-04.
• Daud, Bukhari (1997). Writing and reciting Acehnese: perspectives on language and literature in Aceh (PhD thesis). The University of Melbourne. hdl:11343/37197.
• Daud, Bukhari; Durie, Mark (1999). Kamus basa Acèh/Kamus bahasa Aceh/Acehnese-Indonesian-English thesaurus. Pacific Linguistics Series C, Volume 151. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. doi:10.15144/PL-C151. hdl:1885/146590. ISBN 0-85883-506-1.
• Durie, Mark (1984). A grammar of Acehnese (PhD thesis). Australian National University. doi:10.25911/5d6fa25bcc31c. hdl:1885/138059.
• Durie, Mark (1985). A grammar of Acehnese: on the basis of a dialect of North Aceh (PDF). Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 112. Dordrecht: Foris Publications. ISBN 90-6765-074-9. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-06-05. Retrieved 2010-12-04.
• Durie, Mark (1987). "Grammatical Relations in Acehnese". Studies in Language. 11 (2): 365–399. doi:10.1075/sl.11.2.05dur.
• Durie, Mark (1988), Proto-Chamic and Acehnese mid vowels: towards Proto-Aceh-Chamic (PDF), archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-06-05
• Durie, Mark (1985). "Control and decontrol in acehnese". Australian Journal of Linguistics. 5 (1): 43–53. doi:10.1080/07268608508599335.
• Lawler, John M. (1988). "On the Questions of Acehnese 'Passive'" (PDF). Language. 64 (1): 114–117. doi:10.2307/414789. JSTOR 414789. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2012-03-23. Retrieved 2012-03-23.

Achinese edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Learning Acehnese in Indonesian
• Learning Acehnese in English and Indonesian
• Acehnese literature resources
• Dryer, Matthew S.; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Acehnese language". World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Acehnese
• PARADISEC archive of Ache language includes three collections; MD4, MD5, and MD6. These collections focus on different varieties of Achenese.
• Listen to a sample of Achinese from Global Recordings Network