Enggano language

Enggano
Spoken in Indonesia
Region Enggano Island, off Sumatra
Native speakers 1500 ?  (date missing)
Language family
Language codes
ISO 639-3 eno
Enggano Island, in red

The Enggano language, or Engganese, is the language of Enggano Island off the southwestern coast of Sumatra.

Although adjacent to Austronesian languages, Enggano has not been established as Austronesian; it may instead be a language isolate with Austronesian borrowing.[1] Much of the basic vocabulary cannot be related to Austronesian words. When first contacted by Europeans, the Enggano people had more in common culturally with the Nicobar Islands than with Austronesian Sumatra; however, there are no apparent cognates with Nicobarese or other Austro-Asiatic languages.

Enggano has historically undergone nasal harmony in its identifiable Austronesian vocabulary, where all stop consonants and vowels in a word became nasal after a nasal sound. For example, *eũ'ada'a became eũ'ãnã'ã. On the other hand, many nasal stops became oral, as in ub 'house' (cf. Malay rumah) and ’arib 'five' (Malay lima). Enggano is also the only western (possibly) Austronesian language in which *t shifted to /k/, an unusual change that occurred independently several times in Oceanic.

The counting system is vigesimal: kahai'i ekaka 'one man' = 20, ariba ekaka 'five man' = 100, kahai'i edudodoka 'one our-body' = 400. (The last may be based on two people counting together: each time I count all twenty of my digits, you count one of yours; when you have counted all of your digits, the number is 20×20=400.)

Contents

Phonology

According to Kähler, Enggano has eight vowels, all with nasal equivalents.[2]

front central back
close i ĩ ɨ ɨ̃ u ũ
mid e ẽ o õ
open ɛ ɛ̃ a ã ɔ ɔ̃

Yoder (2010)[3] reports seven oral and seven nasal vowels; /a ã/ is reported to be a front vowel.

front central back
close i ĩ ɨ ɨ̃ u ũ
mid e ẽ ə ə̃ o õ
open a ã

The consonants listed by Nothofer are as follows.[2] Consonants in parentheses are only found in the southern dialect. In vocabulary lists there is also an r.

Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ɲ
Stop /
Affricate
Voiceless p (t) t͡ʃ k ʔ
Voiced b d (d͡ʒ) ɡ
Fricative (f) s h

Yoder lists the following:

Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n
Stop Voiceless p t k ʔ
Voiced b d
Fricative (s) (x) h
Trill r
Approximant (l) j w

[s] and [x] may be allophones, and are only found finally in a few native words. [x] is found after non-front vowels [ɨ], [ə] and [u], with an allophone [ç] after front vowels [a], [ã], and [i]. /l/ only occurs in a few native words.

Vocabulary

The following are the Enggano words attested for the most stable lexemes, in order of stability.[4] Blench (2009) was able to find clear Austronesian cognates for very few of them. [K] indicates data from Kaslim et al. (1987), which often do not have extraneous morphology found in other sources.

Enggano words have eroded from the front, so they will frequently be missing the first consonant of an Austronesian cognate. Nouns may have a prefix e-, which may be a determiner. Verbs may have a prefix ki-, infix ⟨ba⟩ or ⟨pa⟩, or suffix -ãʔã.

Lexeme Enggano Austronesian cognate?
louse (1) e-nãẽ not Austronesian
louse (2) hɛ[y]up [K] not Austronesian
two ʔadua, rua, lua Malayic dua
water
rain
e-bō [K bə]
e-bō [K ɛ-be]
Cf. Bajaw boe, isolated Manus bo, Serili (Maluku) be. [Lampung wai]
Cf. Tanema [Solomonic] emba, Mussau baoo
ear e-kadixa not Austronesian? [Malay talinga]
to die kaʔao [K kaʔa], kakudu not Austronesian? (One of the most diagnostic Austronesian roots) [AN (ma)tay → kay?]
I, me ʔua, ɯɯ [K] Perhaps? Many Austronesian languages have ≈ auaku.
liver e-nĩũnĩũ not Austronesian? [AN dalem → nãnẽ]
eye e-baka not Austronesian? [AN *mata → baka]
hand/arm (1, hand) e-ʔapo not Austronesian [Lampung puŋew, Tagalog kamay]
hand/arm (2, arm) e-parahaodi
hear dohoi not Austronesian
tree e-oʔoba, e-ʔõmẽ-ãʔã (stick) not Austronesian
fish (1) e-ʔaiyo, e-paəadia cf. Yapen dia [Lampung punyew]
fish (2) yay  ? (perhaps reduction of forms such as Bajaw dayah)
name e-nĩə ̃[K ni] Western Oceanic languages have numerous lookalikes, e.g. Bilibil ŋian or Gedaged néan. More remotely Banjarese Malay ŋaran.
stone e-ʔea [K i-ɛa] not Austronesian
tooth e-ahau, e-kaʔa [K kaaʔ] Cf. isolated Papuan Tip, e.g. Saliba kawa [Lampung kedis]
breast e-koko not Austronesian? [Lampung dadokako?]
thou (1) ʔoʔo [Malay kau]
thou (2) ari [K] Cf. Solomonic, e.g. Babatana, Senga re.
path (1) e-ʔekoa [K (h)ɛko] Cf. Teanu [Solomonic] anoko. Other Solomonic languages have final -ka, e.g. Babatana zuka [Lampung gut]
path (2) e-parabia
bone e-ʔā Nothing obvious, but so minimal it could be cognate with almost anything.
tongue e-dio [K di] not Austronesian? [Malay (li)dah, AN (di)la]
skin e-ʔudi Reflex of widespread Austronesian kuli, eg. Iliun [Celebic] ‘uli also Kwara'ae (Solomonic) ‘uli‘uli
night e-pȭ, [K kar-po'-as̄] Perhaps Western Oceanic, e.g. Kayapulau poni, Saliba boni [Lampung bingei]
leaf e-pũnũ, e-puru not Austronesian? [Lampung bulung]
kill
blood e-kiaki not Austronesian
horn
person e-kabake [K kakh] Probably not Austronesian. (But cf. Vitu kaka and Solomonic languages with -ka element in person words, i.e. Vano lamuka, Tanema anuka.)
knee
one kahaiʔi, [K kahakh] Cf. Cheke Holo [Solomonic] kaha, but also Bajaw dakau [ka-hai'i w Lampung -say]
nose e-pãnũ [K panum] Solomonic languages have numerous lookalikes, e.g. Are’are, Oroha panona.
full
come k⟨ab⟩ai, ei Not unless Solomonic mai with loss of first consonant
star (1) e-ʔaperu-au Cf. New Ireland, e.g. Tinag papara, Ririo paraʔat
star (2) e-kaʔomĩmĩ [K koʔmim] Perhaps? Cf. Bajaw mamaw
mountain e-kohoi [AN (bun)dok]
fire e-ʔobi Perhaps? Cf. PMP *hapuy
we
drink <itə [K ka-hit] not Austronesian?
see (1) ka⟨ba⟩pəa [K pə], ki-pĩnã not Austronesian
see (2) ki Cf. PCMP kita
bark
new
dog (1) e-beo [K bɛɛ̄] not Austronesian
dog (2) e-ʔayedi not Austronesian
sun

Yoder (2010) reports the numeral system, though most people now use Malay numerals when speaking Enggano:

Lexeme Enggano
1 kahaiʔ
2 ʔaru
3 ʔakər
4 ʔaup
5 ʔarib
6 ʔakiʔakin
7 ʔarib he ʔaru
8 kĩpãʔĩõp, ʔãpãʔĩõp
9 kaba kahaiʔ
10 kĩpãʔãũ
20 kahaiʔ kak

2–5 appear to be Austronesian, and possibly 1, if ka- is a prefix: Cf. -hai, -ru, -kər, -up, -rib with Lampung say, rua, təlu (*t, *l have shifted to /k/, /l/ in Enggano), pat, lima.

Numbers above 10 and 20 are formed with -p he ~ hi 'and': /kĩpãʔãũp heʔ aru/ 'ten and two' for 12, /kahaiʔ kak he kĩpãʔãũp/ 'twenty and ten' for 30. /kak/ is 'person', so twenty (pronounced [kahaʔɪ kak]) is 'one person'. Multiples of twenty are formed from kak, as in /ʔakər kak he kĩpãʔãũp/ 70, /ʔarib kak/ 100 (also /kahaiʔ ratuh/ from Malay ratus).

/ʔakiʔakin/ 6 may be reduplication of /ʔakər/ 3. /ʔarib he ʔaru/ 7 is 'five and two'. The two forms for 8 mean 'hugging', from the verb /pãʔĩõp/ 'to hug'. The full for of 9, 'eight and one coming', was only elicited in compounds, with 19 attested as /kĩpãʔãũp he ʔãpãʔĩõp ʔabai kahaʔ/ and 29 as /kahaiʔ kak he kĩpãʔĩõp kabai kahaiʔ/, from ka-ba 'to come'. 10 may also be a verb, based on /ʔãũp/, as ki-pa- are verbal prefixes (as in ki-pa-pe 'to give').

References

  1. ^ Blench, 2009
  2. ^ a b Nothofer, 1986, p. 97, after Kähler (1940).
  3. ^ Brendon Yoder, 2010, field notes
  4. ^ Holman, Wichmann, Brown, Velupillai, Müller, Bakker. 2008. Explorations in automated language classification.

Bibliography

External links