Acehnese language

Acehnese
Bahsa/Basa Acèh
بهسا اچيه
Pronunciation bahsa at͡ʃeh
Native to Indonesia
Region Aceh, Sumatra
Ethnicity Acehnese
Native speakers
 3.5 million (2000 census)[1]
Latin
Arabic
Language codes
ISO 639-3 ace
Glottolog achi1257[2]

Aceh province, Sumatra

Acehnese language (Achinese) is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by Acehnese people natively in Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia. This language is also spoken in some parts in Malaysia by Acehnese descendents there, such as in Yan, Kedah.

Name

As of 1988, "Acehnese" is the modern English name spelling and the bibliographical standard, and Acehnese people use the spelling "Acehnese" when writing in English. "Achinese" is an antiquated spelling of the English language tradition. "Atjehnese" is the Dutch spelling and an outdated Indonesian one. The spelling "Achehnese" originates from a 1906 English translation of the Dutch language Studien over atjesche klank- en schriftleer. Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 35.346-442 by Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, 1892. In Acehnese the language is called Basa/Bahsa Acèh. In Indonesian it is called Bahasa Aceh.[3]

Classification and related languages

Acehnese belongs to the Malayo-Polynesian branch of Austronesian. Acehnese's closest relatives are the other Chamic languages, which are principally spoken in Vietnam. The closest relative of the Chamic family is the Malay language family, which includes languages also spoken in Sumatra such as Gayo, the Batak languages and Minangkabau as well as the national language, Indonesian.

Paul Sidwell notes that Acehnese likely has an Austroasiatic substratum.[4]

Distribution

Regencies in Aceh with Acehnese language majority

Acehnese language is located primarily in coastal region of Aceh. This language is spoken in 13 regencies and 4 cities in Aceh, those are:

City

  1. Sabang
  2. Banda Aceh
  3. Lhokseumawe
  4. Langsa

North-East Coast

  1. Aceh Besar
  2. Pidie
  3. Pidie Jaya
  4. Bireuen
  5. Aceh Utara
  6. Aceh Timur (except in 3 subdistricts, Serba Jadi, Peunaron and Simpang Jernih where Gayo language is spoken)
  7. Aceh Tamiang (Manyak Payet and Kuala Simpang subdistrict)

West-South Coast

  1. Aceh Jaya
  2. West Aceh
  3. Nagan Raya
  4. Southwest Aceh (except in subdistrict Susoh where Aneuk Jamee language is spoken)
  5. South Aceh (mixed with Kluet language and Aneuk Jamee language)

Phonology

Main article: Acehnese phonology
Bilingual sign about tsunami warning in Indonesian and Acehnese

Oral monophthong vowels in Acehnese are shown in the table below.[5]
Close i ɨ~ɯ u
Close-mid e ə ɯ
Open-mid ɛ ʌ ɔ
Open a

In addition to the modern 26 letter basic Latin alphabet, Acehnese uses the supplementary letters è, é, ë, ô, and ö, making a total of 31 letters in its orthography.

Hikayat Prang Sabi

The table below shows the Acehnese consonant phonemes and the range of their realizations.[6]
Labial Labio-
dental		 Alveolar Post-
alveolar		 Palatal Velar Glottal
Stop pb td cɟ ka ʔ
Nasal m n ɲ ŋ
Post-stopped nasal mᵇ nᵈ ɲᶡ ŋᶢ
Trill ɲ
Fricative f sz ʃ ɨ
Approximant
(Lateral)		 j w
l

Notes:

Grammar

Acehnese features a split ergative system. Intransitives that align with the agent of a transitive verb (Sa) always show agreement by a proclitic (1). Meanwhile, intransitives that align with the patient of a transitive verb (Sp) may optionally show agreement by an enclitic (2). Volitionality is the determining factor for whether an intransitive verb is Sa or Sp.[9]

(1) Jih ka=ji=jak.
he INCHOATIVE=3=go
"He has gone."
(2) Gopnyan ka=saket=geuh.
he INCHOATIVE=sick=3
"He is sick."

Writing system

Formerly, the Acehnese language was written in an Arabic script called Jawoë or Jawi in the Malay language. The script is less common nowadays. Since colonization by the Dutch, the Acehnese language has been written in the Latin script, with the addition of supplementary letters. The additional letters are é, è, ë, ö and ô.[10] The sound ɨ is represented by 'eu' and the sound ʌ is represented by 'ö', respectively. The letter 'ë' is used to represent the schwa sound which forms the second part of diphthongs.

Dialects

So far there has been no complete research about dialects of the Acehnese language. However, there are at least 10 dialects in the Acehnese language. The dialects are Pasè, Peusangan, Matang, Pidië, Buëng, Banda, Daya, Meulabôh, Seunagan and Tunong.[11]

Gallery

References

  1. ↑ Acehnese at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Achinese". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. ↑ Durie, "The So-Called Passive of Acehnese," p. 104.
  4. ↑ Sidwell, Paul. "Dating the separation of Acehnese and Chamic by etymological analysis of the Aceh-Chamic lexicon." (Archive, Alternate, Archive)
  5. ↑ Pillai & Yusuf (2012:1031), citing Asyik (1987:17)
  6. ↑ Asyik (1982:3)
  7. ↑ Asyik (1982:2), citing Lawler (1977)
  8. ↑ Long & Maddieson (1993) "Consonantal evidence against Quantal Theory", UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 83, p. 144.
  9. ↑ Durie, Mark (1988). "Preferred argument structure in an active language", Lingua 74: 1–25. Cited in Donohue, Mark (2008). "Semantic alignment systems: what's what, and what's not". In Donohue, Mark & Søren Wichmann, eds. (2008). The Typology of Semantic Alignment. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 36
  10. ↑ Ejaan Bahasa Aceh
  11. ↑ Sulaiman, B. 1981. Kedudukan dan Fungsi Bahasa Aceh di Aceh. Jakarta: Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengembangan Bahasa

Bibliography

Further reading

External links


Achinese edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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