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

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
Rhotic 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

a'lumpa'=a

jump=1S

'I jump'

mangang=a

tired=1S

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

ku=isse'=i

1S=know=3S

'I know him'

References

  1. ^ Selayar at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ a b 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. ^ 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
Selayar language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator
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