Makassarese language

ᨅᨔ ᨆᨀᨔᨑ Basa MangkasaraʼNative toIndonesiaRegionSouth Sulawesi (Sulawesi)EthnicityMakassarese2.1 million (2000 census)^[1]Dialects

• Gowa-Takalar (Lakiung)
• Jeʼneʼponto (Turatea)
• Marusuʼ-Pangkajeʼneʼ

Lontara (present)
Latin (present)
Serang (Makassar Annals, religious purpose)
Old Makassarese (historical)Language codesISO 639-2makISO 639-3makGlottologmaka1311

Makassarese (basa Mangkasaraʼ or basa Mangkasarak), sometimes called Makasar, Makassar, or Macassar, is a language of the Makassarese people, spoken in South Sulawesi province of Indonesia. It is a member of the South Sulawesi group of the Austronesian language family, and thus closely related to, among others, Buginese.

Phonology

The following description of Makassarese phonology is based on Jukes (2005).^[2]

Vowels

Makassarese has five vowels: /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/. The mid vowels are lowered to [ɛ] and [ɔ] in absolute final position and in the vowel sequences /ea/ and /oa/.

Consonants

Makassarese consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Plosive	voiceless	p	t	c	k	ʔ
	voiced	b	d	ɟ	ɡ
Fricative			s			h
Semivowel				j	w
Lateral			l
Trill			r

Makassarese consonants except the glottal stop and voiced plosives can be geminated. Some instances of these might result from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian schwa phoneme *ə (now merged into a), which left gemination into the following consonant (*bəli → *bəlli → balli "to buy, price", compare Indonesian beli, contrasting with Makassarese bali "to oppose").^[3]

• /ɲ/ is written ⟨ny⟩ before a vowel, ⟨n⟩ before ⟨c⟩ and ⟨j⟩
• /ŋ/ is written ⟨ng⟩
• /ɟ/ is written ⟨j⟩
• /j/ is written ⟨y⟩
• /h/ only occurs in loanwords
• The glottal stop /ʔ/ only occurs in syllable-final position. It is written as ⟨k⟩ in the orthography promoted as the standard by the government and based on the practice in Indonesian, as an apostrophe ⟨ʼ⟩ in other orthographic standards, sometimes as ⟨q⟩ in academical writing, or not written at all in informal writing.

Phonotactics

All consonants except for /ʔ/ can appear in initial position. In final position, only /ŋ/ and /ʔ/ are found.

Consonant clusters only occur medially and (with one exception) can be analyzed as clusters of /ŋ/ or /ʔ/ + consonant. These clusters also arise through sandhi across morpheme boundaries.

	nasal/lateral					voiceless obstruents					voiced stops + r
	m	n	ɲ	ŋ	l	p	t	c	k	s	b	d	ɟ	ɡ	r
/ŋ/	mm	nn	ɲɲ	ŋŋ	ll	mp	nt	ɲc	ŋk	ns	mb	nd	ɲɟ	ŋg	nr
/ʔ/	ʔm	ʔn	ʔɲ	ʔŋ	ʔl	pp	tt	cc	kk	ss	ʔb	ʔd	ʔɟ	ʔg	ʔr

The geminate cluster /rr/ is only found in root-internal position and cannot be accounted for by the above rules.

Sequences of like vowels are contracted to a single vowel, e.g. sassa 'to wash' + -ang 'nominalizing suffix' > sassáng 'laundry', caʼdi 'small' + -i 'third person' > caʼdi 'it is small'.

Current writing systems

Although Makassarese is now often written in Latin script, it is still widely written using Lontara script, which once was used also to write important documents in Bugis and Mandar, two related languages from Sulawesi.

Examples

Some common words/phrases in the Makasar language, transcribed in the Latin script, are as follows (ʼ = glottal stop):

Writing system examples

Lontara	Romanized	Indonesian	Translation
ᨈᨕᨘ	tau	orang	people
ᨄᨎᨗᨀᨗ	paʼnyiki	kelelawar	bat
ᨕᨑᨙ	areng	nama	name
ᨕᨊ	anaʼ	anak	child
ᨔᨙᨑᨙ᨞ ᨑᨘᨓ᨞ ᨈᨒᨘ᨞ ᨕᨄ᨞ ᨒᨗᨆ᨞	seʼre, rua, tallu, appaʼ, lima	satu, dua, tiga, empat, lima	one, two, three, four, five
ᨅᨕᨗᨊᨙ	baine	perempuan, istri	female, woman, wife
ᨅᨘᨑᨊᨙ	buraʼne	lelaki, suami	male, man, husband
ᨈᨅᨙ	tabeʼ	permisi, maaf	excuse me, sorry
ᨈᨕᨙᨊ, ᨈᨙᨊ, ᨈᨑᨙ	taena, tena, tanreʼ	tiada	none, nothing
ᨒᨙᨅ	leʼbaʼ	telah	already
ᨔᨒᨆᨀᨗ ᨅᨈᨘ ᨆᨕᨙ	salamakkiʼ battu mae	selamat datang	welcome
ᨕᨄ ᨕᨈᨘ ᨆᨕᨙ ᨀᨅᨑ?	apa antu mae kabaraʼ?	apa kabar?	how are you?
ᨅᨍᨗᨅᨍᨗᨍᨗ	bajiʼ-bajiʼji	baik-baik saja	I am fine
ᨊᨕᨗ ᨕᨑᨙᨊᨘ?	nai arenta?	siapa namamu?	what's your name?
ᨒᨀᨙᨑᨙᨀᨗ ᨆᨕᨙ? ᨒᨀᨙᨀᨗ ᨆᨕᨙ? ᨒᨀᨙᨆᨕᨗᨀᨗ?	lakereki mae?, lakekimae?, lakemaeki?	kamu mau ke mana?	where are you going?
ᨀᨙᨑᨙ ᨆᨕᨙᨀᨗ ᨕᨆᨈ	kere maekiʼ ammantang?	kamu tinggal di mana?	where do you live?
ᨔᨗᨐᨄᨆᨗ ᨕᨘᨆᨘᨑᨘᨈ?	siapami umuruʼta?	berapa usiamu?	how old are you?
ᨔᨒᨆᨀᨗ ᨑᨗ ᨆᨂᨙᨕᨈᨙ	salamakkiʼ ri mangeanta	selamat sampai tujuan	have a safe trip
ᨔᨒᨆᨀᨗ ᨑᨗ ᨒᨄᨈ	salamakkiʼ ri lampanta	selamat tinggal	goodbye
ᨅᨈᨘ ᨑᨗ ᨀᨈᨙ	battu ri katte	tergantung padamu	it depends on you

Historical writing systems

Makassarese was historically written using Makasar script (also known as "Old Makassarese" or "Makassarese bird script" in English-language scholarly works).^[4] In Makassarese the script is known as ukiriʼ jangang-jangang or huruf jangang-jangang ('bird letters'). It was used for official purposes in the kingdoms of Makasar in the 17th century but ceased to be used by the 19th century, being replaced by Lontara script.

In spite of their quite distinctive appearance, both the Makasar and Lontara scripts are derived from the ancient Brahmi script of India. Like other descendants of that script, each consonant has an inherent vowel "a", which is not marked. Other vowels can be indicated by adding diacritics above, below, or on either side of each consonant.

Further, Makassarese was written in the Serang script, a variant of the Arabic-derived Jawi script. Texts written in the Serang script are relatively rare, and mostly appear in connection with Islam-related topics. Parts of the Makassar Annals, the chronicles of the Gowa and Tallo' kingdoms, were also written using the Serang script.^[3]

See also

• Makassan contact with Australia

Further reading

References

External links

• Makassar pronunciation and alphabet at Omniglot
• Lontara and Makassar scripts
• Lontara Alphabet in Unicode
• http://unicode-table.com/en/sections/buginese/