Selayar or Selayarese is a

Malayo-Polynesian language 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 ...

spoken by about 100,000 people on the island of Selayar 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,

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, ...

Phonology

Vowels

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 The glottal stop or glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many Speech communication, spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic ...

: : "A dog urinated on him." : "A lizard urinated on him, and a dog defecated on him."

Consonants

Of the coronals, the voiceless stop is dental, while the others are

alveolar Alveolus (; pl. alveoli, adj. alveolar) is a general anatomical term for a concave cavity or pit. Uses in anatomy and zoology * Pulmonary alveolus, an air sac in the lungs ** Alveolar cell or pneumocyte ** Alveolar duct ** Alveolar macrophage * M ...

Morphology

Selayarese intransitive verbs index pronominal arguments via an

absolutive In grammar, the absolutive case (abbreviated ) is the case of nouns in ergative–absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs in the translational equivalents of nominative� ...

enclitic. In transitive verbs the less agent-like argument is indexed by the absolutive enclitic.

References

{{Languages of Indonesia South Sulawesi languages Languages of Sulawesi South Sulawesi