The Sikka language or Sikkanese, also known as Sika,[2] is spoken by around 180,000 people of the Sika ethnic group on Flores island in East Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia. It is a member of the Central Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family.
| Sikka | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Indonesia |
| Region | Flores |
| Ethnicity | Sikka |
Native speakers | (180,000 cited 1995)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | ski |
| Glottolog | sika1262 |
Sikka is notable for being one of the few languages which contain a non-allophonic labiodental flap. Like many other languages in eastern Indonesia, it shows evidence of having a Papuan (non-Austronesian) substratum, but in the case of Sika, this includes extreme morphological simplification and about 20% lexical replacement in basic vocabulary. It has been hypothesized that the Austronesian languages in that area could be descendants of a creole language, resulting from the intrusion of Austronesian languages into eastern Indonesia.[3]
Sika has at least three recognized dialects:
- Sikka Natar, which is generally perceived in the region to be the most refined and most prestigious of the Sika speech varieties.
- Sara Krowe, spoken in the central hills of Sika-speaking people.
- Ata Tana 'Ai or Sara Tana 'Ai, used by both outsiders and insiders to refer to the people and language of the region; it is also used as a ritual language.[2]
Phonology
editConsonants
editSika has the following consonant phonemes:[2]
| Bilabial | Dental | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | Voiceless | p | t | k | ʔ | |
| Voiced | b | d | g | |||
| Fricative | Voiceless | s | h | |||
| Voiced | β | |||||
| Affricate | d͡ʒ | |||||
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||
| Lateral | l | |||||
| Trill | r | |||||
Vowels
editSika has the following vowel phonemes:[2]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | u | |
| Mid | e | ə | o |
| Low | a |
References
edit- ^ Sikka at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ a b c d Lewis, Ε. D.; Grimes, Charles E. (1995). "Sika". In Tryon, Darrell T. (ed.). Comparative Austronesian Dictionary: An Introduction to Austronesian Studies. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 3-1108-8401-1.
- ^ Gil, David (2015). "The Mekong-Mamberamo linguistic area". In N. J. Enfield; Bernard Comrie (eds.). Languages of Mainland Southeast Asia: The State of the Art. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. p. 334. ISBN 978-1-5015-0168-5.
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