South Sulawesi languages


The South Sulawesi languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian language family. They are primarily spoken in the Indonesian provinces of South Sulawesi and West Sulawesi, with a small outlying pocket in West Kalimantan.

Subgrouping

Internal classification

This classification follows Grimes & Grimes and the Ethnologue.
The position of the Tamanic languages, spoken in West Borneo, was unclear until the end of the last century. The Dutch linguist K.A. Adelaar showed that they are especially close to Buginese and thus can be included in the South Sulawesi subgroup.
Zobel also classifies the Badaic languages with Seko as part of a Seko–Badaic group within the South Sulawesi branch.
Notes: Italic writing indicates it is considered a dialect and not a separate language.

Position within Austronesian

At the current state of research, the South Sulawesi languages are considered to make up a primary branch of the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup within the Austronesian language family.

South Sulawesi influence in Malagasy

Adelaar suggested that the vocabulary of Malagasy, next to its basic stratum inherited from Barito and loanwords from Malay, also contains many words that are of South Sulawesi origin. Further evidence was presented by Blench.

Reconstruction

Proto-South Sulawesi has been reconstructed by Mills.

Phonology

Vowels

The Proto-South-Sulawesi vowel *ɨ is a reflex of Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *ə. It is only preserved in Buginese, in all other languages it mostly became a.
The main sources of the mid vowels are PMP *-iq/*-ay, which became *e, and *-uq/*-aw, which became *o, e.g.

Consonants

The velar fricative *ɣ only appears in final position as a reflex of PMP *R, while *z only is found in medial position as a reflex of PMP *j.