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 (Tamanic).
Subgrouping
Internal classification This classification follows Grimes & Grimes (1987) and the Ethnologue.South Sulawesi at Ethnologue (23rd ed., 2020).
South Sulawesi Bugis Buginese Buginese Campalagian Tamanic Embaloh Taman Makassaric Bentong Coastal Konjo Highland Konjo Makassar Selayar Seko Budong-Budong Panasuan Seko Padang Seko Tengah Lemolang Northern Mamuju Mandar Massenrempulu Duri Enrekang Maiwa Malimpung Pitu Ulunna Salu Aralle-Tabulahan Dakka Pannei Bambam Ulumanda’ Toraja Kalumpang Tae’ Mamasa (including Pattae', Central Mamasa, and Northern Mamasa) Toraja-Sa’dan Talondo’
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 (2020) 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 (1995) 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 (2018).
Reconstruction
Proto-South Sulawesi (PSS) has been reconstructed by Mills (1975a, 1975b).
Phonology Vowels FrontCentralBackClose *i *ɨ *uMid *e *oOpen *a The Proto-South-Sulawesi vowel *ɨ is a reflex of Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (PMP) *ə. It is only preserved in Buginese, in all other languages it mostly became a (but under certain circumstances also i, u, e, and rarely o).
The main sources of the mid vowels are PMP *-iq/*-ay, which became *e, and *-uq/*-aw, which became *o, e.g. PMP > PSS 'white' PMP > PSS 'dead' PMP > PSS 'torch' PMP > PSS 'knife'
Consonants BilabialAlveolarPalatalVelarStopvoiceless *p *t *c *kvoiced *b *d *j *gFricativevoiceless *s voiced *z *ɣNasal *m *n *ñ *ŋLateral *lTrill *rApproximant *w *y 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.
See also Languages of Sulawesi Celebic languages
References Citations
Bibliography
Further reading
External links South Sulawesi at Ethnologue (23rd ed., 2020). Classification of Sulawesi Languages