Selayar language

Selayar
Selayar
Basa Silajara
Native to	Indonesia
Region	Selayar Islands, South Sulawesi
Ethnicity	Selayar people
Native speakers	130,000 (2024)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian South Sulawesi Makassaric Selayar; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	sly
Glottolog	sela1260
	Distribution of the Selayar language (number 9) is circled in red in the South Sulawesi languages.
	Distribution of the Selayar language; Selayar language Other Makassaric 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

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

'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

^ 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

[e18-1] Selayar at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)

[mb-2] Mithun, Marianne; Basri, Hasan (1986). "The Phonology of Selayarese". Oceanic Linguistics. 25 (1/2): 210–254. doi:10.2307/3623212. JSTOR 3623212.

[basri-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.

[m1991-4] 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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