Selayar language

Selayar or Selayarese is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by about 100,000 people on the island of Selayar in South Sulawesi province, Indonesia.[2]:210

Selayar
Basa Silajara
Native toIndonesia
RegionSelayar Islands, South Sulawesi
Native speakers
130,000 (2000 census)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3sly
Glottologsela1260

Phonology

Vowels
Front Back
High i u
Mid e o
Low a

Vowels are lengthened when stressed and in an open syllable.

Nasalization

Nasalization extends from nasal consonants to the following vowels, continuing until blocked by an intonation break or a consonant other than a glottal stop:

[lamẽãĩʔĩ ãːsu] "A dog urinated on him."
[sassaʔ lamẽãĩʔĩ | ʔaːsu lataiːʔiʔi] "A lizard urinated on him, and a dog defecated on him."[2]:225–226

Consonants
Bilabial Coronal Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ɲ ŋ
Plosive prenasalized ᵐb ⁿd ᶮɟ ᵑɡ
voiced b d ɟ ɡ
voiceless p t̪ k ʔ
Fricative s h
Lateral l
Approximant ɹ

Of the coronals, the voiceless stop is dental, while the others are alveolar.

Morphology

Selayarese intransitive verbs index pronominal arguments via an absolutive enclitic.[3][4]:162

a'lumpa'=a
jump=1s
'I jump'
mangang=a
tired=1s
'I am tired'

In transitive verbs the less agent-like argument is indexed by the absolutive enclitic.[4]:163

ku=isse'=i
1s=know=3s
'I know him'

References
  1. Selayar at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. Mithun, Marianne; Basri, Hasan (1986). "The Phonology of Selayarese". Oceanic Linguistics. 25 (1/2): 210–254. doi:10.2307/3623212. JSTOR 3623212.
  3. Basri, Hasan (1999). Phonological and syntactic reflections of the morphological structure of Selayarese (Ph.D. dissertation). State University of New York at Stony Brook.
  4. Mithun, Marianne (1991), "The role of motivation in the emergence of grammatical categories: The grammaticization of subjects", in Traugott, Elizabeth; Heine, Bernd (eds.), Approaches to Grammaticization, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 159–185, ISBN 9781556194023
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