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Tukang Besi language

Tukang Besi is an Austronesian language spoken in the Tukangbesi Islands in southeast SulawesiinIndonesia by a quarter million speakers. A Tukang Besi pidgin is used in the area.^[2]

Phonology[edit]

The northern dialect of Tukang Besi has 25 consonant phonemes and a basic 5-vowel system.^[3] It features stress which is usually on the second-to-last syllable. The language has two implosive consonants, which are uncommon in the world's languages. The coronal plosives and /s/ have prenasalized counterparts which act as separate phonemes.

Notes:

• /b/ only appears in loanwords, but it contrasts with /ɓ/
• [d] and [z] are not phonemic and appear only as allophonesof/dʒ/, which appears only in loanwords.

Orthography[edit]

Vowels[edit]

• a – [a/ɐ]
• e – [ɛ/e]
• i – [i/ɪ]
• o – [o/ɔ]
• u – [ɯ/u]

Consonants[edit]

• b – [ɓ/ʔɓ/ʔb/β]
• b̠ – [b]
• c – [t͡ʃ]
• d – [ɗ̪]
• d̠ – [d/d͡ʒ/z]
• g – [g/ɠ/ʔɠ/ɣ]
• h – [h/ɸ]
• j – [d͡ʒ]
• k – [k/c]
• l – [l̪]
• m – [m]
• mb – [mb]
• mp – [mp]
• n – [n]
• nd – [n̪d̪]
• ns – [n̪s̪]
• nt – [n̪t̪]
• ng – [ŋ]
• ngg – [ŋɡ]
• ngk – [ŋk]
• nj – [n̪d̪]
• p – [p]
• r – [r]
• s – [s]
• t – [t̪]
• w – [w]
• ' – [ʔ]

^[4]

Grammar[edit]

Nouns[edit]

Tukang Besi does not have grammatical gender or number. It is an ergative–absolutive language.

Verbs[edit]

Tukang Besi has an inflectional future tense, which is indicated with a prefix, but no past tense.

Word order[edit]

Tukang Besi uses verb–object–subject word order, which is also used by Fijian. Like many Austronesian languages, it has prepositions, but places adjectives, genitives, and determiners after nouns. Yes–no questions are indicated by a particle at the end of the sentence.^[5]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Donohue, Mark (1995). The Tukang Besi Language of Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia (Ph.D. thesis). The Australian National University. doi:10.25911/5D70F30ACBE63. hdl:1885/136142.
• Donohue, Mark (1999). A Grammar of Tukang Besi. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 9783110805543.
• Donohue, Mark (2000). "Tukang Besi dialectology". In Grimes, C.E. (ed.). Spices from the East: Papers in languages of Eastern Indonesia. Pacific Linguistics No. 503. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. pp. 55–72. doi:10.15144/PL-503.55. hdl:1885/146101.