Tontemboan language

Last updated
Tontemboan
Native to Indonesia
Region North Sulawesi
Native speakers
(150,000 cited 1990) [1]
Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3 tnt
Glottolog tont1239
Tontemboan Bible, by M. Adriani-Gunning and J. Regar, published in 1907 by Firma P.W.M Trap, Leiden, Holland. Tonbible.jpg
Tontemboan Bible, by M. Adriani-Gunning and J. Regar, published in 1907 by Firma P.W.M Trap, Leiden, Holland.

Tontemboan is an Austronesian language, of northern Sulawesi, Indonesia. It is a Minahasan language, a sub-group of the Philippine languages. [2]

Contents

Name and dialects

Other names and dialect names are: Makela'i-Maotow, Makelai, Matana'i-Maore', Matanai, Pakewa, Kumawangkoan, Tompakewa, Tumompaso, Sonder, and Tountemboan. [3]

Phonology

Consonants

Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ɲ ŋ
Plosive/
Affricate
voiceless p t k ʔ
voiced b d ( ɡ )
Fricative s ɣ h
Rhotic r
Lateral l
Approximant w j

Vowels

Front Central Back
Close i u
Mid e ə o
Open a

Usage

As of 2013, an estimated 100,000 people speak the language, but it is not being passed on to children. It is used in the areas of Sonder, Kawangkoan, Tompaso, Langowan, Tumpaan, Suluun, Amurang, Kumelembuai, Motoling, Tompaso Baru, and Modoinding. [5] Documentation of the language assembled by missionaries in the early 20th century is relatively inaccessible to Tontemboan speakers, as it is written in the Dutch language. [6]

In 1907, Firma P.W.M Trap, Leiden, Holland published a Bible in the Tontemboan language. It was edited by Maria Lamberta Adriani-Gunning and Johannis Regar.

Vocabulary

EnglishTontemboan [7]
oneesa
tworua
threetellu
fourepat
fivelima
sixenem
sevenpitu
eightwallu
ninesiou
tenmapulu
northmonge
southmeko
westmako
eastmico
waterrano
showerlemele
eatkuman
worktamawoy
fireapi
earlunteng
coldutiŋ
largewangkər
Iaku
youangko
know-taʔu
saynuwu

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indonesian language</span> Official language of Indonesia

Indonesian is the official and national language of Indonesia. It is a standardized variety of Malay, an Austronesian language that has been used as a lingua franca in the multilingual Indonesian archipelago for centuries. Indonesia is the fourth most populous nation in the world, with over 270 million inhabitants of which the majority speak Indonesian, which makes it one of the most widely spoken languages in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Malay language</span> Austronesian language of Southeast Asia

Malay is an Austronesian language that is an official language of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, and that is also spoken in East Timor and parts of the Philippines and Thailand. Altogether, it is spoken by 290 million people across Maritime Southeast Asia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Javanese language</span> Austronesian language

Javanese is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by the Javanese people from the central and eastern parts of the island of Java, Indonesia. There are also pockets of Javanese speakers on the northern coast of western Java. It is the native language of more than 98 million people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uab Meto language</span> Austronesian language spoken in West Timor

Uab Meto or Dawan is an Austronesian language spoken by Atoni people of West Timor. The language has a variant spoken in the East Timorese exclave of Oecussi-Ambeno, called Baikenu. Baikenu uses words derived from Portuguese, for example, obrigadu for 'thank you', instead of the Indonesian terima kasih.

Sentani or Buyaka is a Papuan language of West Papua. It is spoken in about 30 scattered villages. Dialects are East, West, and Central (Ethnologue).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ekari language</span> Trans–New Guinea language of Indonesia

Ekari is a Trans–New Guinea language spoken by about 100,000 people in the Paniai lakes region of the Indonesian province of Papua, including the villages of Enarotali, Mapia and Moanemani. This makes it the second-most populous Papuan language in Indonesian New Guinea after Western Dani. Language use is vigorous. Documentation is quite limited.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lampung language</span> Language in Indonesia

Lampung or Lampungic is an Austronesian language or dialect cluster with around 1.5 million native speakers, who primarily belong to the Lampung ethnic group of southern Sumatra, Indonesia. It is divided into two or three varieties: Lampung Api, Lampung Nyo, and Komering. The latter is sometimes included in Lampung Api, sometimes treated as an entirely separate language. Komering people see themselves as ethnically separate from, but related to, Lampung people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Banjarese language</span> Native language of Banjarese people

The Banjar or Banjarese is an Austronesian language predominantly spoken by the Banjarese—an indigenous ethnic group native to Banjar regions— in the southeastern Kalimantan of Indonesia. The Banjarese language is the de facto lingua franca for various indigenous community especially in South Kalimantan, as well as Central Kalimantan and East Kalimantan in general.

Sangirese, also known as Sangihé, Sangi, and Sangih, is an Austronesian language spoken on the islands linking northern Sulawesi, Indonesia, with Mindanao, Philippines by the Sangirese people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">South Bird's Head languages</span> Families of Papuan languages

The South Bird's Head or South Doberai languages are three families of Papuan languages. They form part of the Trans–New Guinea languages in the classifications of Malcolm Ross (2005) and Timothy Usher (2020), though Pawley and Hammarström (2018) do not consider them to be part of Trans–New Guinea. However, according to Dryer (2022), based on a preliminary quantitative analysis of data from the ASJP database, South Bird's Head languages are likely to be a subgroup of Trans–New Guinea.

The Gorontalo–Mongondow languages are a group of Austronesian languages spoken in northern Sulawesi, Indonesia.

The Minahasan languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages spoken by the Minahasa people in northern Sulawesi, Indonesia. They belong to the Philippine subgroup.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Languages of Sulawesi</span> Languages of a geographic region

On the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, 114 native languages are spoken, all of which belong to the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup of the Austronesian language family. With a total number of 17,200,000 inhabitants, Sulawesi displays a high linguistic diversity when compared with the most densely populated Indonesian island Java, which hosts 4–8 languages spoken by 145,100,000 inhabitants.

The Bima language, or Bimanese is an Austronesian language spoken on the eastern half of Sumbawa Island, Indonesia, which it shares with speakers of the Sumbawa language. Bima territory includes the Sanggar Peninsula, where the extinct Papuan language Tambora was once spoken. Bima is an exonym; the autochthonous name for the territory is Mbojo and the language is referred to as Nggahi Mbojo. There are over half a million Bima speakers. Neither the Bima nor the Sumbawa people have alphabets of their own for they use the alphabets of the Bugis and the Malay language indifferently.

Taliabo (Taliabu) is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken on the island of the same name in the Moluccas of Indonesia.

Tonsawang, also known as Tombatu, is an Austronesian language of the northern tip of Sulawesi, Indonesia. It belongs to the Minahasan branch of the Philippine languages.

Ponosakan is an Austronesian language spoken in the vicinity of the town of Belang, North Sulawesi, Indonesia. This language is almost extinct, with only four fluent speakers left as of November 2014.

Moma is an Austronesian language spoken in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. Historically, it is derived from the Kaili dialect cluster, but is divergent due to strong influence from Uma.

The Proto-Philippine language is a reconstructed ancestral proto-language of the Philippine languages, a proposed subgroup of the Austronesian languages which includes all languages within the Philippines as well as those within the northern portions of Sulawesi in Indonesia. Proto-Philippine is not directly attested to in any written work, but linguistic reconstruction by the comparative method has found regular similarities among languages that cannot be explained by coincidence or word-borrowing.

Piet Drabbe was a member of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart who worked successively from 1912 to 1960 in the Philippines, the Tanimbar Islands, and on the southern coast of Dutch New Guinea, now the Indonesian province of Papua.

References

  1. Tontemboan at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. Liao (2008) , p. 3
  3. OLAC resources in and about the Tontemboan language
  4. Lomban Ticoalu, H. Th.; et al. (et al.) (1984). Struktur Bahasa Tontemboan. Jakarta: Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengembangan Bahasa, Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan.
  5. Sneddon (1970) , p. 16
  6. Bruce Wallace (Director) (2013-10-10). "When New Yorker Rose Monintja speaks her native tongue, the memories flood back". The World. Public Radio International. Retrieved 2013-10-16.
  7. Sneddon (1970) , pp. 20–26

Sources