The Celebic languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages spoken on the island of Sulawesi, formerly called ''Celebes.'' Almost all of the languages spoken in the provinces of

Central Sulawesi Central Sulawesi ( Indonesian: ''Sulawesi Tengah'') is a province of Indonesia located at the centre of the island of Sulawesi. The administrative capital and largest city is located in Palu. The 2010 census recorded a population of 2,635,009 fo ...

and

Southeast Sulawesi Southeast Sulawesi ( id, Sulawesi Tenggara) 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 Wawonii (formerly ...

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 and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 isl ...

, Bonerate) are located in South Sulawesi province. By number of languages (but not by number of speakers), Celebic is the largest subgroup of Austronesian languages on Sulawesi.

Subgrouping

Internal classification

David Mead (2003a:125) classifies the Celebic languages as follows. * 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 Wolio is an Austronesian language spoken in and around Baubau on Buton Island, Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia. It belongs to the Wotu–Wolio branch of the Celebic subgroup. Also known as Buton, it is a trade language and the former court lang ...

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 Southeas ...

subgroup within the Austronesian language family.

Proto-Celebic

David Mead (2003a:125) lists the following sound changes for Proto-Celebic and its subgroups. 1.

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 Austronesi ...

to Proto-Celebic * *C₁C₂ > *C₂ (C₁ not nasal) * *h > Ø * *d > *r * *ay, *-ey > *e * *-aw, *-ew > *o * *j > *y, Ø 2. 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 3. Proto-Eastern Celebic to Proto- Saluan–Banggai * *-awa- > *oa * *-b, *-g > *p, *k * *q > *ʔ 4. Proto-Eastern Celebic to Proto-Southeastern Celebic * *-w- > Ø * *s > *s, *h * *Z > *s * *ñ > n * *b > *b, *w 5. Proto-Southeastern Celebic to Proto- Bungku–Tolaki * *q > *ʔ * *w- > *h * *ʀ > Ø initially and contiguous to *i 6. Proto-Southeastern Celebic to Proto- Muna–Buton * *w > Ø *final consonant loss (?)

References

External links