Banggai language

Banggai
Banggai
Native to	Indonesia
Region	Sulawesi
Native speakers	88,000 (2010 census)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Celebic Saluan–Banggai Eastern Banggai; ; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	bgz
Glottolog	bang1368

The Banggai language is the main language spoken by the inhabitants of the Banggai Archipelago off the island of Sulawesi. It belongs to the Saluan–Banggai branch of the Celebic subgroup.

Historically, Banggai was a spoken language without a long literary history. The earliest surviving manuscript in the Banggai language comes from the 19th century, the account of a Banggai fisherman who was sold into slavery by Maguindanaoan raiders in the 1860s-70s before escaping.^[2]

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n		ŋ
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		k	ʔ
	voiced	b	d		ɡ
	prenasal vl.	ᵐp	ⁿt		ᵑk
	prenasal vd.	ᵐb	ⁿd		ᵑɡ
Fricative			s			h
Rhotic			r
Lateral			l
Approximant		w		j

/s/ may also be heard as prenasal [ⁿs] when after nasal sounds.
Other sounds like [tʃ, dʒ, ɲ] are heard in loanwords from neighboring languages.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i iː		u uː
Mid	e eː		o oː
Open		a aː

Vowels /e, o/ can also be heard as [ɛ, ɔ] in closed syllables.^[3]

References

^ Banggai at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
^ Velthoen, Esther Joy. "Contested Coastlines: Diasporas, Trade, and Colonial Expansion in Eastern Sulawesi, 1680-1905." pg. 212. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis. Australia: Murdoch University. Available online also at: https://www.oxis.org/theses/velthoen-2002.pdf [accessed in Kendari, Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia: August 10, 2018] (2002).
^ van den Bergh, J. D. (1953). Spraakkunst van het Banggais. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

References

Further reading