Makassarese language

Makassar
Makassar
Bahasa Makassar
ᨅᨔ ᨆᨀᨔᨑ Basa Mangkasaraʼ
Native to	Indonesia
Region	South Sulawesi (Sulawesi)
Ethnicity	Makassarese
Native speakers	2.1 million (2000 census)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian South Sulawesi Makassaric Makassar; ; ; ;
Dialects	Gowa (Lakiung); Turatea; Marusuʼ-Pangkajeneʼ;
Writing system	Lontara (present); Latin (present) ; Old Makassarese (historical)
Language codes
ISO 639-2	mak
ISO 639-3	mak
Glottolog	maka1311

This article contains Lontara script. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Lontara characters.

Makassarese (basa Mangkasaraʼ), sometimes spelled 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
Plosive	voiced	b	d	ɟ	ɡ
Fricative			s			h
Semivowel				j	w
Lateral			l
Trill			r

/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 and is usually written as an apostrophe ⟨ʼ⟩

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.

1. Makassar script
2. Lontara script
3. Serang Alphabet
4. Latin alphabet

Examples[]

Some common words/phrases in the Makassar 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᨞	seʼre, rua, tallu, appaʼ	satu dua tiga empat	one, two, three, four
ᨅᨕᨗᨊᨙ	baine	perempuan, istri	female, woman, wife
ᨅᨘᨑᨊᨙ	buraʼne	laki-laki, suami	male, man, husband
ᨈᨅᨙ	tabeʼ	permisi, maaf	excuse me, sorry
ᨈᨙᨊ	tena	tidak ada	none, nothing
ᨒᨙᨅ	leʼbaʼ	pernah	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?
ᨒᨀᨙᨀᨗ ᨆᨕᨙ? ᨒᨀᨙᨆᨕᨗᨀᨗ?	lakekimae?, lakemaeki?	kamu mau ke mana?	where are you going?
ᨀᨙᨆᨕᨙᨀᨗ ᨕᨆᨈ	kemaekiʼ 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	bergantung padamu	it depends on you

Historical writing system[]

Sample of a handwritten book, written in Makassarese using the Makasar script, of a diary of the Princes of Gowa. The palláwa punctuation signs, typical of this script, are drawn and colored in red, as well as a few proper names and some inserts in Arabic.

Museum display showing script comparison of Makasar (left), Lontara (center), and Bilang-bilang (right) at Balla Lompoa Museum, Sungguminasa, Gowa

Makassarese was historically written using Makasar script (also known as "Old Makassarese" or "Makassarese bird script" in English-language scholarly works).^[3] 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.

References[]

^ Makassar at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
^ Jukes, Anthony, "Makassar" in K. Alexander Adelaar & Nikolaus Himmelmann, 2005, The Austronesian languages of Asia and Madagascar, pp. 649-682, London, Routledge ISBN 0-7007-1286-0
^ Pandey, Anshuman (2015-11-02). "L2/15-233: Proposal to encode the Makasar script in Unicode" (PDF).

External links[]

[e18-1] Makassar at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)

[2] Jukes, Anthony, "Makassar" in K. Alexander Adelaar & Nikolaus Himmelmann, 2005, The Austronesian languages of Asia and Madagascar, pp. 649-682, London, Routledge ISBN 0-7007-1286-0

[3] Pandey, Anshuman (2015-11-02). "L2/15-233: Proposal to encode the Makasar script in Unicode" (PDF).

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