Tukang Besi language

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Tukang Besi
Spoken in:	Indonesia
Region:	Sulawesi, Tukang Besi Archipelago
Total speakers:	200,000
Language family:	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian (MP) Nuclear MP Sunda-Sulawesi Muna-Buton Tukangbesi-Bonerate Tukang Besi
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	`map`
ISO/FDIS 639-3:	either: `khc` — Tukang Besi North `bhq` — Tukang Besi South
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key.

Tukang Besi is an Austronesian language spoken in the Tukang Besi archipelago in south-east Sulawesi in Indonesia by some 200,000 speakers.

1 Sounds
- 1.1 Consonants
- 1.2 Vowels
2 External links

[edit] Sounds

Tukang Besi has 25 consonant phonemes and a basic 5-vowel system. It features stress which is usually on the second to last syllable. The language features two implosive consonants, which are uncommon in the world's languages. The explosive stops and the fricative /s/ all have prenasalized counterparts which act as separate phonemes.

[edit] Consonants

	Bilabial		Dental		Alveolar		Velar		Glottal
Plosives	p	b	t	(d)			k	g	ʔ
Implosives		ɓ		ɗ
Nasals	m				n		ŋ
Fricatives		β			s	(z)			h
Prenasalized plosives	mp	mb	nt	nd			ŋk	ŋg
Prenasalized fricative			ns
Trill					r
Lateral approximant			l

/b/ only appears in loanwords, though it is contrastive to /ɓ/. [d] and [z] are not phonemic and appear only as allophones of /ʤ/ which appears only in loanwords.