Acehnese ( ; EBAYD: Bahsa/Basa Acèh; Husaini: Bahsa/Basa Atjèh; Jawoe: , : /ba(h)sa at͡ʃɛh/), also written as Achinese, is an Austronesian language of the Chamic branch natively spoken by the Acehnese people in Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia. This language is also spoken by Acehnese descendants in some parts of Malaysia like in Kedah. Acehnese is used as the co-official language in the province of Aceh, alongside Indonesian.
Being part of the Chamic languages group, Acehnese is the only Austronesian language of the Chamic branch spoken in Indonesia, its closest relatives are the other Chamic languages, which are principally spoken in Vietnam and Cambodia.
Classification
Acehnese belongs to the Malayo-Polynesian branch of Austronesian. Acehnese's closest relatives are the other Chamic languages, which are principally spoken in Vietnam and Cambodia. The distant relative of the Chamic family is the Malayic language family, which includes languages also spoken in Sumatra such as Minangkabau as well as the national language, Indonesian.
Paul Sidwell notes that Acehnese likely has an Austroasiatic substratum.(, Alternate , )
Linguist Paul Sidwell wrote that "Sometime during this early phase of language shift, perhaps before the beginning of Common Era, the Chamic speakers who were to become the Acehnese left the mainland on a journey that would ultimately end in northern Sumatra." Basing on Graham Thurgood's thesis, Sidwell argues that Acehnese likely had been long separated from Chamic around the first to second century BCE.
History The first speakers of Cham, which would later become Acehnese, arrived in Sumatra from the Kingdom of Champa, where they would establish a trading outpost and refugee colony. Further Cham migrations would increase in the late 900s from the fall of Indrapura, as people fled to Angkor, Hainan, Malacca, and Aceh. A historical connection between Aceh and Champa still can be seen in modern times through the folk song Bungong Jeumpa (Champak flower), which is about a flower from the Kingdom of Jeumpa, which Cowan relates to Champa, with the folk song itself believed to have originated from an oral tradition tracing back to Champa.
Acehnese was historically isolated within the regions of Great Aceh and Daya in the northwestern most tip of modern day Aceh, before later spreading into the northern and western coastal regions during the expansion of the Aceh Sultanate under the rule of Ali Mughayat Syah in 1520 through 1524.
Etymology The etymology for Aceh is unclear and the term didn't exist in historical records until the 1500s, the earliest usage of Aceh largely refers to the port city of Banda Aceh and generally to the region of Great Aceh as a whole, which can be seen in the expression " (going to Aceh)" used by people outside of the region to mean "to go to Great Aceh".
The word Aceh was first used by Tomé Pires in 1520, which was spelt as Achei, several other variants can be found in European historical records from the 16th to the 18th centuries, such as Achem by the Portuguese, Achin by the English, and Atjeh by the Dutch. The name Achinese and Achehnese was used to refer to the language in English, the modern term Acehnese, which is the one used today, was first coined from a 1906 English translation of Snouck Hurgronje's from 1892.
Literature Literature written in Acehnese was limited, as most literature in Aceh was written in Malay, which was the lingua franca at the time, with the earliest written record of Acehnese is from a manuscript titled (The Story of Syama'un) from 1658 CE. Acehnese literature at the time were mostly in the form of poetry, either as hikayat or nazam, very few works were in prose, one of which was Kitab Bakeu Meunan, a translation of the book Qawaa'id al-Islaam.
During the early 1890s, several Dutch publications was made to document and study Acehnese language and literature practises, which mainly uses the Latin script to transcribe the language. In 1888, Hendrik August Nicolaas Catenius publishes a trilingual phrase book , containing phrases in Dutch, Malay, and Acehnese. In 1891, Snouck Hurgronje was sent to Aceh by the Dutch government, where he collected and study Acehnese and its literacy traditions for seven months. In 1892, he would publish , which he explains and presents his Latin orthography to write Acehnese.
Under the program of Ethical Policy, the colonial government of Dutch East Indies attempts to provide public education for the indigenous population, which initiated literacy programs in Acehnese using the Latin script, which later became widely used and adapted by publications regarding Acehnese literature for educational and teaching purposes with support from the Dutch government from the 1910s to the 1930s. Acehnese literature stalled after the Indonesian National Revolution due to the political instability at the time and the ongoing Darul Islam rebellion that was taking place in Aceh. Efforts to promote and standardise Acehnese began in the 1960s, with educational guide and materials being published to teach Acehnese in primary schools, which was taught as a required subject since 1968.
The first encyclopedia in Acehnese, the Acehnese Wikipedia, was launched on August 12, 2009. A prose translation of the Quran in Acehnese was published by the Ministry of Religious Affairs on December 13, 2018. As of now, there is no newspaper published in Acehnese. In 2020, the first Acehnese-language magazine, Majalah Neurôk, was launched, initiated by an Acehnese cultural figure, Ayah Panton. Google Translate added the Acehnese language translation feature on June 27, 2024.
Geographic distribution and dialects
Acehnese is primarily spoken in the northern tip of Sumatra, largely concentrated within the northern and western coastal regions. Acehnese is spoken by around 2.8 million people (2010 census) within the province of Aceh, Indonesia. Acehnese is also spoken in neighbouring Malaysia, notably in Kampung Acheh, an ethnic enclave within the region of Yan District, Kedah, where in 2013, 64.4% of Acehnese descendants in the village speaks Acehnese with family.
Acehnese has a wide arrange of dialect variations, usually divided into four major grouping of dialects:
North Acehnese, spoken in Bireuen, North Aceh, Lhokseumawe, East Aceh, and Langsa. Pidie, spoken in Pidie, Pidie Jaya, and pockets in Rusip Antara District of Central Aceh. Great Aceh, spoken in Sabang, Banda Aceh, and Aceh Besar. and West Acehnese, spoken in Aceh Jaya, West Aceh, and large portions of Nagan Raya, Southwest Aceh, and South Aceh. An additional fifth dialect, Daya, also referred to as Lamnoe, spoken in Aceh Jaya, is also recognised as a major dialect, splitting from West Aceh.
Standard Acehnese, or North Acehnese, is the standard form of Acehnese taught in education, specifically, Standard Acehnese is based on the Peusangan dialect of North Aceh. The North Aceh dialect is a phonologically homogenous dialect, with little to no variation between speakers other than minor lexical differences.
Pidie is spoken between the dialects of Great Aceh and North Aceh, mainly in Pidie. Similar to North Aceh, Pidie is a homogenous dialect, but not as consistent as North Aceh. Pidie is characterised by the pronunciation of final /h/ with a palatal glide before it, such as pronouncing tikôh /t̠ikoh/ as tikôih [t̠ikoi̯h].
Great Aceh and Daya are spoken on the northwestern region of Aceh, they are notable for its stark dialect varieties between villages compared to the largely homogeneous dialects of North Aceh and Pidie. Due to the vast difference between variants, it is thought to be the original area where Acehnese is first spoken, though the dialects of Great Aceh and Daya are generally similar to each other. Great Aceh is characterised by its pronunciation of /s/ as [θ] and /r/ as a uvular or velar fricative [ɣ ~ ʁ], while Daya is additionally characterised by its vast range of variety, with asoe /asɔə̯/ (flesh) having over five possible variant pronunciations: [aθɔə̯], [aθɔ], [aθɔi̯], [aθai̯], and [aθɛ].
West Acehnese is spoken on the western coast of Aceh, below Great Aceh, Daya, and Pidie. West Aceh is characterised by its pronunciation of /r/, compared to the alveolar trill of North Aceh and Pidie, West Aceh pronounces /r/ as a uvular fricative [ʁ], similar to those of Great Aceh and Daya.
Aside from the five major grouping, Acehnese dialects can be further subdivided into ten groups: Pasè, Peusangan, and Matang from the North; Pidie; Bueng, Banda Aceh of Great Aceh; and Daya, Meulabôh, Seunagan, and Tunong of West Coast.
Phonology Acehnese's phonology inventory are as follows:, citing
Vowels Acehnese distinguishes between oral and nasal vowels, though not all phonemes have a nasal equivalent. +Acehnese vowels+ Acehnese monophthongs Front Central Backoralnasaloralnasaloralnasal Close Close-mid Open-mid Open + Acehnese diphthongs FrontCentralBackoralnasaloralnasaloralnasal Close iə̯ĩə̯ɯə̯ɯ̃i̯uə̯ui̯ũə̯ Close-midəi̯oi̯Open-midɛə̯ɛ̃ə̯ʌə̯ʌi̯ɔə̯ɔi̯ Openai̯ãi̯
Consonants The table below shows the Acehnese consonants range of their realizations.
+Acehnese consonants Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal Nasal () () () () Plosive Fricative(f) ([~]) () Approximant Trill Notes: The /h/ clusters are heard as aspirated /pʰ, tʰ, cʰ, kʰ/ or murmured /bʱ, dʱ, ɟʱ, ɡʱ, lʱ, rʱ/. The alveolar fricative is realised as a voiceless denti-alveolar sibilant [s̻̪], similar to English's th as in "think", described by Durie as "a laminal alveo-dental fricative with a wide channel area". The fricative has also been described as a plain voiceless dental sibilant . The voiceless alveolar stop is realised as postalveolar [t̠]. The phoneme is represented by final orthographic , in medial and initial positions it's unmarked. Arabic phonemes such as , , and /q/ are often nativised to /d/, /pʰ/, and /k/ respectively. Arabic and varies, can be realised as /c/, /cʰ/, or /s/, and can be realised as /kʰ/, /k/, or /h/. The phoneme /pʰ/ is often articulated as the affricate /ɸ/, Acehnese speakers realise the phoneme /f/ as /ɸ/, both in Arabic and modern loans. In the Northern dialect, the nasals , , , are realized as post-oralized nasals (also called "funny nasals") before oral vowels and consonants., citing They are distinct from the nasal–plosive sequences , , , , e.g. in 'port' vs 'all'.Long & Maddieson (1993) "Consonantal evidence against Quantal Theory", UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 83, p. 144. Outside of the Northern dialect, post-oralized nasals are treated as plain nasal–plosive sequences.
Grammar Acehnese features a split ergative system. Intransitives that align with the agent of a transitive verb (Sa) always show agreement by a proclitic (1). Meanwhile, intransitives that align with the patient of a transitive verb (Sp) may optionally show agreement by an enclitic (2). Volitionality is the determining factor for whether an intransitive verb is Sa or Sp.Durie, Mark (1988). "Preferred argument structure in an active language", Lingua 74: 1–25. Cited in Donohue, Mark (2008). "Semantic alignment systems: what's what, and what's not". In Donohue, Mark & Søren Wichmann, eds. (2008). The Typology of Semantic Alignment. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 36
Pronouns All Acehnese pronouns and animate, more often than not human, a demonstative is used to refer to something inanimate. As with Malay, Acehnese only distinguishes between singular and plural, though they do have a system of respect or politeness.
The table below provides the most commonly used pronouns and their respect in the Acehnese language: Person Clusivity RespectSingularPlural1st personexclusivefamiliarkèekamoestandardlônpoliteulônmost polite(u)lôntuwaninclusive(geu)tanyoe2nd personfamiliarkahawak kahstandardgataawak gatapolitedroeneuhawak droeneuh3rd personfamiliarjihawak nyanstandardgopnyanureueng nyanpolitedroeneuh nyan