Karo, referred to in Indonesia as Bahasa Karo (Karo language), is an Austronesian language that is spoken by the

Karo people Karo people may refer to: *Karo people (Indonesia) *Karo people (East Africa) ''Karo'' is a group of Nilotic tribes that straddles the Nile in the Republic of South Sudan and is predominately found in Central Equatoria State, and as far South ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...

. It is used by around 600,000 people in

North Sumatra North Sumatra ( id, Sumatra Utara) is a province of Indonesia located on the northern part of the island of Sumatra. Its capital and largest city is Medan. North Sumatra is Indonesia's fourth most populous province after West Java, East Java and ...

. It is mainly spoken in

Karo Regency Karo Regency is a landlocked regency of North Sumatra, Indonesia, situated in the Barisan Mountains. The regency covers an area of and according to the 2010 census it had a population of 350,479, increasing to 404,998 at the 2020 Census. 60.99 ...

, southern parts of Deli Serdang Regency and northern parts of Dairi Regency,

. It was historically written using the

Batak alphabet The Batak script (natively known as ''surat Batak'', ''surat na sampulu sia'' ("the nineteen letters"), or ''si-sia-sia'') is a writing system used to write the Austronesian languages, Austronesian Batak languages spoken by several million pe ...

which is descended from the

Brahmi script Brahmi (; ; ISO: ''Brāhmī'') is a writing system of ancient South Asia. "Until the late nineteenth century, the script of the Aśokan (non-Kharosthi) inscriptions and its immediate derivatives was referred to by various names such as 'lath' ...

of ancient India by way of the

Pallava The Pallava dynasty existed from 275 CE to 897 CE, ruling a significant portion of the Deccan, also known as Tondaimandalam. The dynasty rose to prominence after the downfall of the Satavahana dynasty, with whom they had formerly served as f ...

and Old Kawi scripts, but nowadays only a tiny number of Karo can write or understand the script, and instead the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern ...

is used.

Classification

Karo is a Northern

Batak Batak is a collective term used to identify a number of closely related Austronesian ethnic groups predominantly found in North Sumatra, Indonesia, who speak Batak languages. The term is used to include the Karo, Pakpak, Simalungun, Tob ...

language, and is closely related to Pakpak and Alas. It is mutually unintelligible from the Southern Batak languages, such as

Toba Toba may refer to: Languages * Toba Sur language, spoken in South America * Batak Toba, spoken in Indonesia People * Toba people, indigenous peoples of the Gran Chaco in South America * Toba Batak people, a sub-ethnic group of Batak people from N ...

, Angkola and Mandailing.

Dialects

There are several dialects within Karo. A major dialect boundary exists between the dialects spoken in the east and the dialects spoken in the west. These are largely distinguished according to phonological and lexical differences. Vowels in the eastern dialect are lowered and fronted in the western dialect. Similarly,

diphthong A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...

s in the eastern dialect are realised as

monophthong A monophthong ( ; , ) is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation. The monophthongs can be contrasted with diphthongs, wh ...

s in the western dialect.

Phonology

Karo has 17 consonant phonemes and 10 vowel phonemes.

Vowels

Consonants

Morphology

Batak Karo has productive

reduplication In linguistics, reduplication is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word (or part of it) or even the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change. The classic observation on the semantics of reduplication is Edwa ...

. Full reduplication occurs mainly with open word classes and exhibits a wide range of different functions. For instance, reduplication of nouns can signify plurality ( 'bone' → 'bones') and imitation and similitude ( 'coconut shell' → 'skull'). Reduplication of verbs can encode repetition ( 'ask' → 'keep asking'), duration ( 'think' → 'ponder') or imitation ( ‘sleep’ → ‘lie down, rest’). Batak Karo has a binary contrast between actor voice and patient voice for transitive verbs and can be classified as an Indonesian-type language. Actor voice is marked with the inflectional prefix ''N-''. The prefix ''N-'' assimilates to the place of articulation of the stem that it is attached to, and is realised as before bilabial stops, before dental, alveolar and palatal stops and fricatives and �before velar stops. Patient voice is marked with the inflectional prefix ''i-''. Like other Indonesian-type languages Batak Karo also has applicatives (the suffixes ''-ken'' as a general applicative, and ''-i'' as a locative applicative).

Syntax

Batak Karo often alternate between subject-initial and predicate-initial word orders for transitive clauses, although the preference is for Actor Voice clauses to be subject-initial. Predicate-Undergoer-Actor is a common word order when the undergoer is replaced by an interrogative pronoun. In contrast, while it is possible for patient voice clauses to place the subject (the undergoer in patient voice clauses) in the initial position, predicate-initial word orders are more frequent, with the undergoer subject placed after both the predicate and the actor.

Sample

Karo English translation In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

References

Bibliography

* * * *

External links

* Paradisec archive o
recordings from a 2010 Field Methods class on Batak Karo

Indonesian to Karo Dictionary

Batak Karo Christian Bible

Batak languages Languages of Indonesia {{Indonesia-stub