Ulumandaʼ is an Austronesian language of West Sulawesi, Indonesia. It is nearly intelligible with other Pitu Ulunna Salu languages,[2] but Ulumanda’ is distinguished by an unusual series of front vowels.
| Ulumandaʼ | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Indonesia |
| Region | Sulawesi |
Native speakers | (30,000 cited 1986)[1] |
Austronesian
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | ulm |
| Glottolog | ulum1237 |
Phonology
editThe vowel inventory of Ulumandaʼ is as follows:[3]
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | i y | u |
| Mid | e ø | o |
| Open | æ | ɑ |
The attested consonant inventory is as follows:
| Labial | Alveolar | Dorsal | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k | ʔ |
| voiced | b | d | ɡ | ||
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | ||
| Fricative | s | h | |||
| Trill | r | ||||
| Lateral | l | ||||
| Approximant | j | ||||
Vowel harmony
editUlumandaʼ is unusual among the Austronesian languages of Sulawesi for featuring a vowel harmony opposition of front vowels /æ, ø, y/ to corresponding back vowels /ɑ, o, u/ comparable to that of the Uralic languages. Originally, fronted vowels arose from the fronting of back vowels before syllable-final velar consonants *k and *ŋ, but were phonemicized in final syllables when word-final *-m and *-n merged with *ŋ to result in -ŋ but did not front a preceding back vowel unlike original *-ŋ. These fronted vowels then fronted any other back vowels in a word except if a neutral vowel like *e or *i intervened between the vowels.
A contrastive pair includes /uraŋ/ "person" vs. /uræŋ/ [yræŋ] "shrimp".
References
edit- ^ Ulumandaʼ at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ Friberg, Timothy; Laskowske, Thomas V. (1989). "South Sulawesi languages" (PDF). In J.N. Sneddon (ed.). Studies in Sulawesi linguistics part 1. NUSA 17. Jakarta: Badan Penyelenggara Seri Nusa. pp. 1–17.
- ^ Zobel, Erik (September 15, 2014). "Vowel Fronting in Ulumanda' (South Sulawesi)". Sounds from around the Pacific Ocean. Retrieved April 19, 2024.
- ^ Smith, Beverly Kean (1993). A Phonological Reconstruction of Proto-Pitu Ulunna Salu. University of Texas at Arlington.
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