Tukang Besi language

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

Tukang Besi Pidgin
Native speakers
None
Tukang Besi–based pidgin
Language codes
ISO 639-3–
Glottologpidg1257
Tukang Besi
Native toIndonesia
RegionSulawesi, Tukang Besi Archipelago
Native speakers
(250,000 cited 1995)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3Either:
khc – Tukang Besi North
bhq – Tukang Besi South
Glottologtuka1247

Phonology

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.

Tukang Besi (northern dialect) consonants[3]
Bilabial Dental/
Alveolar		 Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ŋ
Plosive plain p b t̪ (d̪) k ɡ ʔ
prenasalized mp mb n̪t̪ n̪d̪ ŋk ŋɡ
Implosive ɓ ɗ̪
Fricative plain β s (z) h
prenasalized n̪s̪
Trill r
Lateral l̪
The vowel phonemes of Tukang Besi

Notes:

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

Orthography

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

Consonants
  • 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

Nouns

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

Verbs

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

Word Order

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
  1. Tukang Besi North at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    Tukang Besi South at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. Donohue, Mark (1996). "Some trade languages of insular South-East Asia and Irian Jaya". In Wurm, Stephen A.; Mühlhäusler, Peter; Tryon, Darrell T. (eds.). Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 713–716.
  3. Donohue, Mark (1999). "Tukang Besi". Handbook of the International Phonetic Association. Cambridge University Press. pp. 151–53. ISBN 0-521-65236-7.
  4. "Tukang Besi language". Omniglot. Retrieved 30 November 2021.
  5. Dryer, Matthew S.; Haspelmath, Martin (2013). "Language Tukang Besi". The World Atlas of Linguistic Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Retrieved 27 February 2021.

Further reading
  • 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.
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