Tukang Besi language

Tukang Besi
Spoken in Indonesia
Region Sulawesi, Tukang Besi Archipelago
Native speakers 200,000  (date missing)
Language family
Austronesian
Language codes
ISO 639-3 either:
khc – Tukang Besi North
bhq – Tukang Besi South
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Tukang Besi is an Austronesian language spoken in the Tukangbesi Islands in south-east Sulawesi in Indonesia by some 200,000 speakers.

Sounds

The northern dialect of Tukang Besi has 25 consonant phonemes and a basic 5-vowel system.[1] 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 coronal plosives and /s/ have prenasalized counterparts which act as separate phonemes.

Bilabial Dental/
Alveolar		 Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ŋ
Plosive plain p b t̪ (d̪) k ɡ ʔ
prenasalized mp mb n̪t̪ n̪d̪ ŋk ŋɡ
Implosive ɓ ɗ̪
Fricative plain β s (z) h
prenasalized n̪s̪
Trill r
Lateral l̪

/b/ only appears in loanwords, though it contrasts with /ɓ/. [d] and [z] are not phonemic and appear only as allophones of /dʒ/ which appears only in loanwords.

References

  1. ^ Donohue, Mark (1999). "Tukang Besi". Handbook of the International Phonetic Alphabet. Cambridge University Press. pp. 151–53. ISBN 0-521-65236-7. 

External links