Fort Towson

"Balantak" redirects here. For the district, see Balantak, Sulawesi.

Balantak is an Austronesian language spoken at the head of the eastern peninsula of Sulawesi. It is classified as a member of the Saluan-Banggai branch of the Celebic subgroup. The Balantak language is the primary language of the Balantak people. Although 90% of the population are also proficient in Indonesian, the vernacular is still vigorously used in everyday contexts, and most children only speak Balantak before entering school.[2]

Phonology

Balantak has the following phoneme inventory:[3]

Consonants
Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ŋ ⟨ng⟩
Plosive voiceless p t t͡ʃ ⟨c⟩[a] k ʔ ⟨'⟩
voiced b d d͡ʒ ⟨j⟩[a] g
Fricative s h[a]
Lateral l
Trill r
Approximant w j ⟨y⟩
  1. ^ a b c Only occur in loanwords
Vowels
Front Central Back
High i u
Mid ɛ ⟨e⟩ ɔ ⟨o⟩
Low a

Sequences of like vowels are phonetically realized as long vowels, e.g. toop [tɔ:p] 'cigarette', nuur [nu:r] 'coconut'.

References

  1. ^ Balantak at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ van den Berg & Busenitz (2012), p. 4
  3. ^ van den Berg & Busenitz (2012)

Further reading

External links

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balantak_language