The Celebic languages are a subgroup of the

Austronesian languages The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken ...

spoken on the

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

n island of

Sulawesi Sulawesi ( ), also known as Celebes ( ), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the List of islands by area, world's 11th-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Min ...

, formerly called ''Celebes.'' Almost all of the languages spoken in the provinces of

Central Sulawesi Central Sulawesi (Indonesian language, Indonesian: ''Sulawesi Tengah'') is a Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia located at the centre of the island of Sulawesi. The administrative capital and largest city is located in Palu. The provin ...

and

Southeast Sulawesi Southeast Sulawesi (, ; often abbreviated to Sultra, ), is a province on the island of Sulawesi, forming the southeastern peninsula of that island, together with a number of substantial offshore islands such as Buton, Muna, Kabaena and Wawon ...

belong to the Celebic group. A few Celebic languages (e.g.

Wotu Wotu is an endangered Austronesian language of South Sulawesi, Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comp ...

, Bonerate) are located in

South Sulawesi South Sulawesi () is a Provinces of Indonesia, province in the South Peninsula, Sulawesi, southern peninsula of Sulawesi, Indonesia. The Selayar Islands archipelago to the south of Sulawesi is also part of the province. The capital and largest ci ...

province. By number of languages (but not by number of speakers), Celebic is the largest subgroup of

on Sulawesi.

Subgrouping

Internal classification

David Mead (2003a:125) classifies the Celebic languages as follows. *Celebic ** Tomini–Tolitoli ** Kaili–Pamona ** Wotu–Wolio ** Eastern *** Saluan–Banggai ***Southeastern **** Bungku–Tolaki **** Muna–Buton More recently, Zobel (2020) proposed that Kaili–Pamona and Wotu–Wolio form a Kaili– Wolio group, which Zobel places as a primary subgroup of Celebic. Furthermore, in Zobel's (2020) classification, Kaili–Wolio is placed as a sister to group to Tominic–Eastern Celebic, which contains Mead's (2003) Tomini–Tolitoli and ''Eastern Celebic'' groups.

Position within Austronesian

At the current state of research, the Celebic languages are considered to make up a primary branch of the

Malayo-Polynesian The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. The Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken by the Austronesian peoples outside of Taiwan, in the island nations of Southeast ...

subgroup within the

Austronesian Austronesian may refer to: *The Austronesian languages *The historical Austronesian peoples The Austronesian people, sometimes referred to as Austronesian-speaking peoples, are a large group of peoples who have settled in Taiwan, maritime Sout ...

language family.

Proto-Celebic

David Mead (2003a:125) lists the following

sound change In historical linguistics, a sound change is a change in the pronunciation of a language. A sound change can involve the replacement of one speech sound (or, more generally, one phonetic feature value) by a different one (called phonetic chan ...

s for Proto-Celebic and its subgroups. #

Proto-Malayo-Polynesian Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (PMP) is the reconstructed ancestor of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, which is by far the largest branch (by current speakers) of the Austronesian language family. Proto-Malayo-Polynesian is ancestral to all Austronesia ...

to Proto-Celebic #* *C₁C₂ > *C₂ (C₁ not nasal) #* *h > Ø #* *d > *r #* *ay, *-ey > *e #* *-aw, *-ew > *o #* *j > *y, Ø # Proto-Celebic to Proto-Eastern Celebic #* *e (schwa) > *o #* *-iq > *eq #*

antepenultimate In linguistics, the ultima is the last syllable of a word, the penult is the next-to-last syllable, and the antepenult is third-from-last syllable. In a word of three syllables, the names of the syllables are antepenult-penult-ultima. Etymology Ul ...

*a > *o # Proto-Eastern Celebic to Proto- Saluan–Banggai #* *-awa- > *oa #* *-b, *-g > *p, *k #* *q > *ʔ # Proto-Eastern Celebic to Proto-Southeastern Celebic #* *-w- > Ø #* *s > *s, *h #* *Z > *s #* *ñ > n #* *b > *b, *w # Proto-Southeastern Celebic to Proto- Bungku–Tolaki #* *q > *ʔ #* *w- > *h #* *ʀ > Ø initially and contiguous to *i # Proto-Southeastern Celebic to Proto- Muna–Buton #* *w > Ø #*final consonant loss (?)

References

External links

Celebic languages
at ''

Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensive catalogue of languages. It w ...