Mamasa is an

Austronesian language 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 b ...

spoken in

West Sulawesi West Sulawesi (), covering a land area of 17,152.99 km2 with its capital at Mamuju, is a province of Indonesia on the western side of Sulawesi (formerly Celebes) island, consisting 6 regencies ('' kabupaten''), namely Polewali Mandar, Ma ...

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, ...

. This language is the

native language A first language (L1), native language, native tongue, or mother tongue is the first language a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period hypothesis, critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' ...

of the

Mamasa people The Mamasa ( Mamasa: ''To Mamasa'') is an ethnic group residing in Mamasa Regency, West Sulawesi. The Mamasa community is known in districts in Mamasa Regency. The Mamasa people are part of the Toraja sub-people. Mamasa language is similar to T ...

which is related to the

Toraja people The Torajan are an ethnic group indigenous to a mountainous region of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Their population is approximately 1,100,000, of whom 450,000 live in the regency of Tana Toraja ("Land of Toraja"). Most of the population is Chri ...

Dialects

Three dialects can be distinguished: * Northern Mamasa * Central Mamasa * Pattae' Speakers of Pattae' are a culturally distinct ethnic group traditionally more affiliated to the

Mandar people The Mandarese are an ethnic group in the Indonesian province of West Sulawesi in Sulawesi. The Mandar language belongs to the Northern subgroup of the South Sulawesi languages group of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language fam ...

than to speakers of the Northern and Central Mamasa dialects in the interior, and for that reason Pattae' is considered by its speakers to be a language separate from Mamasa proper (i.e. Northern and Central Mamasa).

Phonology

Mamasa has the following consonants and vowels:

Dialects

Phonology

References

Further reading