Selayar language
Language spoken in Indonesia
title: "Selayar language" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["south-sulawesi-languages", "languages-of-sulawesi", "south-sulawesi"] description: "Language spoken in Indonesia" topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selayar_language" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Language spoken in Indonesia ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox language"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Selayar |
| map | Selayar language of the South Sulawesi languages.png |
| mapcaption | Distribution of the Selayar language (number 9) is circled in red in the South Sulawesi languages. |
| map2 | Selayar and Makassaric locator map.png |
| mapcaption2 | Distribution of the Selayar language |
| | nativename | Basa Silajara | | states | Indonesia | | region | Selayar Islands, South Sulawesi | | ethnicity | Selayar people | | speakers | | | date | 2024 | | ref | e18 | | familycolor | Austronesian | | fam2 | Malayo-Polynesian | | fam3 | South Sulawesi | | fam4 | Makassaric | | iso3 | sly | | glotto | sela1260 | | glottorefname | Selayar | | notice | IPA | ::
|name=Selayar |map=Selayar language of the South Sulawesi languages.png |mapcaption=Distribution of the Selayar language (number 9) is circled in red in the South Sulawesi languages. |map2=Selayar and Makassaric locator map.png |mapcaption2=Distribution of the Selayar language
|nativename=Basa Silajara |states=Indonesia |region=Selayar Islands, South Sulawesi |ethnicity=Selayar people |speakers= |date=2024 |ref=e18 |familycolor=Austronesian |fam2=Malayo-Polynesian |fam3=South Sulawesi |fam4=Makassaric |iso3=sly |glotto=sela1260 |glottorefname=Selayar |notice=IPA
Selayar (Basa Silajara) or Selayarese is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by approximately 130,000 people of the Selayar people on the Selayar Islands in the province of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. This language is egalitarian in its use, there are no levels of language, either rough or weak.
Phonology
Vowels
::data[format=table]
| Front | Back | High | Mid | Low |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| :: |
Vowels are lengthened when stressed and in an open syllable.
Nasalization
Nasalization extends from nasal consonants to the following vowels, continuing until blocked by an intonation break or a consonant other than a glottal stop: : "A dog urinated on him." : "A lizard urinated on him, and a dog defecated on him."
Consonants
::data[format=table]
| Bilabial | Coronal | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | Nasal | Plosive | prenasalized | voiced | voiceless | Fricative | Lateral | Rhotic |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| :: |
Of the coronals, the voiceless stop is dental, while the others are alveolar.
Morphology
Selayarese intransitive verbs index pronominal arguments via an absolutive enclitic. |title=Phonological and syntactic reflections of the morphological structure of Selayarese |publisher=State University of New York at Stony Brook}} |last=Mithun|first=Marianne|year=1991 |contribution=The role of motivation in the emergence of grammatical categories: The grammaticization of subjects |editor-last=Traugott|editor-first=Elizabeth |editor-last2=Heine|editor-first2=Bernd |location=Amsterdam|publisher=John Benjamins |title=Approaches to Grammaticization |pages=159–185|isbn=9781556194023}}
|a'lumpa'a |jump1S |'I jump'|lang=sly}}
|manganga |tired1S |'I am tired'|lang=sly}}
In transitive verbs the less agent-like argument is indexed by the absolutive enclitic.
|kuisse'i |1Sknow3S |'I know him'|lang=sly}}
References
References
- Mithun, Marianne. (1986). "The Phonology of Selayarese". Oceanic Linguistics.
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