| Selayar | |
|---|---|
| Basa Silajara | |
| Native to | Indonesia |
| Region | Selayar Islands, South Sulawesi |
| Ethnicity | Selayar people |
Native speakers | 130,000 (2024)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | sly |
| Glottolog | sela1260 |
 Distribution of the Selayar language (number 9) is circled in red in the South Sulawesi languages. | |
 | |
Selayar (Basa Silajara) or Selayarese is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by approximately 130,000 people of the Selayar people on the Selayar Islands in the province of South Sulawesi, Indonesia.[2]: 210 This language is egalitarian in its use, there are no levels of language, either rough or weak.
Phonology
[edit]Vowels
[edit]| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| High | i | u |
| Mid | e | o |
| Low | a | |
Vowels are lengthened when stressed and in an open syllable.
Nasalization
[edit]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
[edit]| 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 | |||||
| Rhotic | ɹ | |||||
Of the coronals, the voiceless stop is dental, while the others are alveolar.
Morphology
[edit]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
[edit]- ^ Selayar at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ a b Mithun, Marianne; Basri, Hasan (1986). "The Phonology of Selayarese". Oceanic Linguistics. 25 (1/2): 210–254. doi:10.2307/3623212. JSTOR 3623212.
- ^ Basri, Hasan (1999). Phonological and syntactic reflections of the morphological structure of Selayarese (Ph.D. dissertation). State University of New York at Stony Brook.
- ^ a b 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
