Last Updated: 2020-07-16
Background
Language family: Austronesian / Malayo-Polynesian / Western Malayo-Polynesian / Sulawesi / South Sulawesi / Bugis
- The Bugis language is also known as Buginese and is spoken throughout Sulawesi, Indonesia.
Phonology
Consonants
- Not all sources agree on the phonemic inventory of Bugis. I have chosen to include the phonemes that the majority of the sources agreed on. The differences, however, are listed below:
- Jaya (2018) additionally includes /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ but omits /c/, /ɟ/, and /ɲ/.
- Talaohu (2019) additionally includes /f/ and /ɸ/.
- Wolff (2010) omits /ʔ/ and /j/.
- Valls (2014) additionally includes /ʃ/ and /ʒ/.
- Pedros Caballero (2014) lists /ɾ/ instead of /r/ and omits /ʔ/.
- Additionally, Pedros Caballero (2014) states that the phonemes presented as /c/ and /ɟ/ may actually be /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ (p. 10). This may explain why Jaya (2018) includes /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ instead of /c/ and /ɟ/.
- According to Valls (2014), /h/ is only found in Indonesian loanwords (p. 8). However, due to the significant influence, it is recognized as a phoneme of Bugis.
- Geminate consonants /pp/, /bb/, /tt/, /dd/, /kk/, /ss/, /mm/, /nn/, /ll/, /cc/, and /ɟɟ/ are constrastive (Valls 2014, 9; Pedros Caballero 2014, 8).
- Talaohu (2019) argues that instead of two phonemes /k/ and /ɡ/, [ɡ] is actually an allophone of /k/ (pp. 31-32). However, Pedros Caballero (2014) presents minimal pairs for these phonemes, so I will treat them as distinct (p. 11).
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Place of Articulation
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Manner of Articulation
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Labial
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Alveolar
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Palatal
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Velar
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Glottal
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Stops
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p b
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t d
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c ɟ
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k ɡ
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ʔ
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Fricatives
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s
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h
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Nasals
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m
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n
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ɲ
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ŋ
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Trills
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r
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Approximants
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w
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l
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j
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Note: Where two phonemes share a cell, those on the left are voiceless and those on the right are voiced.
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Vowels
- Vowels /i/, /e/, /a/, /o/, and /u/ also have long counterparts, which are indicated by duplicate graphemes (Valls 2014, 8). However, vowel length is not actually contrastive in Bugis, so I have chosen to treat this feature as allophonic and transcribe such instances of long vowels as short in the rules.
- Though sequences of consecutive vowels occur in Bugis, they are not always realized as complex phonemes (Pedros Caballero 2014, 6). Therefore, I have not accounted for them as diphthongs in the rules.
- The status of schwa as a phoneme in Bugis is somewhat unclear. All sources recognize /ə/ as a distinct phoneme. However, according to Pedros Caballero (2014), [ə] may be a possible allophone of both /a/ and /e/ in unstressed syllables (p. 7). It is important to note that it is not uncommon for a phoneme of a language to also be an allophone, so this lenition of /a/ and /e/ is most likely coincidence rather than evidence against schwa being a phoneme. There do however appear to be words in which /ə/ appears in stressed syllables (Pedros Caballero 2014, 7), which would serve as evidence against the language having a truly reduced phonemic vowel. Furthermore, Valls (2014) describes this mid central vowel as “rounded,” which suggests it could actually be /ɵ/ or /ɞ/ (p. 12). Based on this, I have chosen to represent this mid central vowel as /ɵ/ rather than /ə/.
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Front
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Central
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Back
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High
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i
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u
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Mid
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e
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ɵ
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o
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Low
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a
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Alphabet
- /f/ and /v/ can be found in loanwords, and are most often realized as [p] (Jaya 2018, 62).
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Grapheme
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Phoneme
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a
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/a/
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b
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/b/
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c
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/c/
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d
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/d/
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e
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/e/
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è
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/ɵ/
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g
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/ɡ/
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h
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/h/
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i
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/i/
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j
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/ɟ/
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k
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/k/
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l
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/l/
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m
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/m/
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n
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/n/
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o
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/o/
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p
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/p/
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r
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/r/
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s
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/s/
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t
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/t/
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u
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/u/
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w
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/w/
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y
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/j/
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’
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/ʔ/
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Digraph
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ng
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/ŋ/
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ny
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/ɲ/
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Syllable Structure
- Syllables in Bugis are of the type (C)(C)V(C) (Pedros Caballero 2014, 13).
- In syllables with a CC onset, the second consonant is often glide /j/.
- The coda is predominantly either a nasal or /ʔ/.
Lenition Rules
- Stops tend to vary freely with their fricative (or flap) counterparts (Valls 2014, 11–12):
- /b/ varies freely with [β] intervocalically and in onset position
- /p/ varies freely with [f] and [ɸ]
- /d/ varies freely with [ɾ] and [ð] intervocalically
- /ɡ/ varies freely with [ɣ] intervocalically
- According to Jaya (2018), /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, and /h/ are generally realized as [ʔ] word-finally (pp. 57-58).
Misc. Rules
- /ŋ/ assimilates to the place of the following consonant (Valls 2014, 12).
- All vowels have nasal allophones that surface when in proximity to nasals (ibid.).
- Nasals /m/, /n/, and most likely /ɲ/ are often realized as [ŋ] word-finally (Jaya (2018), p. 59).
- /s/ may be realized as [θ] (Pedros Caballero 2014, 10).
- /w/ may be realized as [β] (Pedros Caballero 2014, 11).
References
Jaya. 2018. “Phonological Interference of Buginese into Indonesian by Buginese Speakers in Tolitoli Central Sulawesi: A Study of Transformational-Generative Phonology.”
Pedros Caballero, Toni. 2014. “Grammar Sketch of Bugis.”
Talaohu, Ahmad Rifani. 2019. “The Phonetics System in Buginese Language.” Journal of Linguistics, Literature, and Language Teaching 3 (1). Ma Chung University: 25–44.
Valls, David. 2014. “A Grammar Sketch of the Bugis Language,” 1–69.
Wolff, John U. 2010. Proto-Austronesian Phonology with Glossary. Vol. 1. Cornell Southeast Asia Program.