Buginese language

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{{language |name=Buginese |nativename=ᨅᨔ ᨕᨘᨁ basa ugi |familycolor=Austronesian |region=South Sulawesi, Sabah, Malay peninsula |speakers=3.5 to 4 million |fam2=Malayo-Polynesian (MP) |fam3=Nuclear MP |fam4=Sunda-Sulawesi |fam5=South Sulawesi |fam6=Bugis languages |iso2=bug|iso3=bug}}

Buginese (locally Basa Ugi, elsewhere also Bahasa Bugis, Bugis, Bugi, De') is the language spoken by about four million people mainly in the southern part of Sulawesi, Indonesia.

1 History
2 Classification
3 Geographical Distribution
4 Script
- 4.1 The Buginese Lontara
5 Dialects And Subdialects
6 External links

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History

The word Buginese derived from the word Bahasa Bugis in Malay. In Buginese, it is called Basa Ugi while the Bugis people are called To Ugi. Ugi in buginese means The First King which refers to the first king of ancient Bugis kingdom, Cina.

Little is known about the early history of this language due to the lack of written records. The earliest written record of this language is the I La Galigo, an epic cycle about the early life at the South Sulawesi and full of myths.

Another written source of Buginese is Lontara, a term which refers to the traditional script and history record as well. However the earliest history record of lontara is dates to around the 17th century and cannot be accepted as a reliable source of history since it was influenced by myths.

Prior to the Dutch arrival in 18th century, a missionary, B.F. Matthews translated the bible into Buginese, which made him the first Europeans to acquire knowledge of the language. He was also one of the first Europeans to master Makassarese. The dictionaries and grammar books compiled by him and the literature and folkfore texts he published remain basic sources of information about both languages.

Upon colonization by the Dutch, a number of Bugis fled from their home area of South Sulawesi seeking for better life. This led to the existence of small groups of buginese speakers through out the Malay Archipelago.

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Classification

Buginese is an Ergative-absolutive language of the Austronesian language family and to be more specific, it is a Western Malayo-Polynesian. Therefore, this language is closely related to the languages from western part of Malay Archipelago such as Javanese, Madurese and Sundanese. In fact buginese language absorbed certain words from these language such as word janrang means 'horse' which it is believed to come from the word Javanese anyarang. Buginese also related to language from the eastern part of archipelago like Malay.

Image:M101703 id-1-.gif

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Geographical Distribution

Most of the native speakers (around 3 millions) are concentrated in South Sulawesi, Indonesia but there are small groups of Buginese speakers in the island of Java, Samarinda and east Sumatra of Indonesia, Sabah and Malay Peninsula, Malaysia and South Philippines. This Bugis diaspora is caused by the migration during 18th and 19th centuries which was driven by the Dutch colonization and its Cultivation System (in Dutch: cultuurstelsel).

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Script

It was traditionally written using the Lontara script, of the Brahmic family, which is also used for the Makassar language and the Mandar language. The name lontara derives from the Malay word for the palmyra palm, lontar, the leaves of which are the traditional material for manuscripts in India, South East Asia and Indonesia. However, today it is often written using the Roman alphabet.

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The Buginese Lontara

The Buginese lontara (locally known as Askara Bugis) has a slightly different pronunciation from the other lontaras like the Makassarese. It is also used diacritics to distinguish the vowels /a/, /e/, /e'/, /i/, /o/ and /u/. Image:Lontara vwl-1-.gif However, old texts usually did not use diacritics as the readers are expected to know how to pronounce the words. This led to a various pronunciation like the word bolo (means house) is pronounced bala by the young readers and non native speakers which they are not familiar with the old texts.

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Dialects And Subdialects

The Bugis still distinguish themselves according to their major precolony states (Bone, Wajo, Soppeng and Sidenreng) or groups of petty states (around Pare-Pare, Sinjai and Suppa.) The languages of these areas, with their relatively minor differences from one another, have been largely recognized by linguists as constituting dialects: recent linguistic research has identified eleven of them, most comprising two or more sub-dialects.

These are part of the list of Buginese dialect:Bone (Palakka, Dua Boccoe, Mare), Pangkep (Pangkajane), Camba, Sidrap (Sidenreng, North Pinrang, Alitta), Pasangkayu (Ugi Riawa), Sinjai (Enna, Palattae, Bulukumba), Soppeng (Kessi), Wajo, Barru (Pare-Pare, Nepo, Soppeng Riaja, Tompo, Tanete), Sawitto (Pinrang), Luwuk (Luwuk, Bua Ponrang, Wara, Malangke-Ussu).

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