The Nias language is an Austronesian language spoken on Nias Island and the Batu Islands off the west coast of Sumatra in Indonesia. It is known as Li Niha by its native speakers. It belongs to the Northwest Sumatra–Barrier Islands subgroup which also includes Mentawai and the Batak languages.[1] It had about 770,000 speakers in 2000.[1] There are three main dialects: northern, central and southern.[2] It is an open-syllable language, which means there are no syllable-final consonants.
Nias | |
---|---|
Li Niha | |
Native to | Indonesia |
Region | Nias and Batu Islands, North Sumatra |
Ethnicity | Nias people |
Native speakers | 770,000 (2000 census)[1] |
Language family | Austronesian
|
Writing system | Latin |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-2 | nia |
ISO 639-3 | nia |
Glottolog | nias1242 |
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. |
Nias is typically considered to have three dialects.[3][4]
Cognate percentage among the dialects of Nias is about 80%.[5]
The northern variant is considered the prestige dialect. The only complete Bible translation is written in the northern dialect and is used by speakers of all dialects.[6]
Nias has the following phonemes (sounds only found in the northern dialect are given in green, southern-only sounds are in red):[7][8]
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i | u | |
Mid | e | ɤ ⟨ö⟩ | o |
Open | a | ||
Labial | Dental/ Alveolar |
Palato- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Stop/ Affricate |
voiceless | t | tʃ ⟨c⟩ | k | ʔ ⟨'⟩ | ||
voiced | b | d | dʒ ⟨z⟩ | ɡ | |||
prenasalized / trilled | ⟨mb⟩ [ʙ] | ⟨ndr⟩ [dʳ] | |||||
Fricative | voiceless | f | s | x ⟨kh⟩ | h | ||
voiced | v ⟨w⟩ | z | |||||
Nasal | m | n | ŋ ⟨ng⟩ | ||||
Approximant | ʋ ⟨ß⟩ | l | j ⟨y⟩ | w ⟨ŵ⟩ | |||
Trill | r |
Phonetic descriptions of the sounds traditionally written as ⟨mb⟩ and ⟨ndr⟩ greatly vary. Sundermann (1913) and Halawa et al. (1983) describe them as prenasalized stop [ᵐb] and prenasalized trilled stop [ⁿdʳ] for the northern dialect,[9][10] while Brown (2005) records them as trill [ʙ] and trilled stop [dʳ] for the southern dialect.[8] In an acoustic study of Nias dialects from three locations, Yoder (2010) shows a complex pattern of four phonetic realizations of ⟨mb⟩ and ⟨ndr⟩: plain stop, prenasalized stop, stop with trilled release, stop with fricated release.[11][lower-alpha 1]
The status of initial [ʔ] is not determined; there are no phonetic vowel-initial words in Nias.
The contrast between [v] and [ʋ] (both written ⟨w⟩ in common spelling) is only observed in the southern dialect. Here, the fricative [v] only occurs in initial position in the mutated form (see §Noun case marking (mutation)) of nouns beginning with f, e.g. fakhe ~ wakhe [vaxe]. The approximant [ʋ] can appear in initial and medial position, and is in free variation with [v] for many speakers of the southern dialect.[12] For the northern dialect, only fricative approximant [ʋ] is reported, corresponding to both sounds of southern Nias.[13] The semivowel [w] is a distinct phoneme and is written ⟨ŵ⟩ in common spelling.[14]
Nias has an ergative–absolutive alignment.[15] It is the only known ergative–absolutive language in the world that has a "marked absolutive", which means that absolutive case is marked, whereas ergative case is unmarked.[16][17]
There are no adjectives in Nias, words with that function are taken by verbs.[18]
The following table lists the free and bound pronouns of Nias (green = only used in the northern dialect, red = only used in the southern dialect):[19][20][21]
independent | absolutive | genitive | ergative realis |
S = A irrealis | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1.sg. | ya'o / ya'odo / ya'oto | ndra'o(do) / ‑do / ndrao(to) | -gu | u- | gu- |
2.sg. | ya'ugö | ndra'ugö / ‑ö / ndraugö | -u / ‑mö | ö- | gö- |
3.sg. | ya'ia | ia / ya | -nia | i- | ya- |
1.pl.incl. | ya'ita | ita | -da | ta- | da- |
1.pl.excl. | ya'aga | ndra'aga / ‑ga | -ma | ma- | ga- |
2.pl. | ya'ami | ami / -mi | -mi | mi- | gi- |
3.pl. | ya'ira | ira | -ra | la- | ndra- |
Independent pronouns are used:
Ya'o
1SG.IND
zia'a
first.born:MUT
(southern dialect)[22]
Ya'o zia'a
1SG.IND first.born:MUT
'I am the first-born.'
Andrehe'e
DIST
nasu
dog:MUT
si-usu
REL-bite
ya'o
1SG.IND
(southern dialect)[23]
Andrehe'e nasu si-usu ya'o
DIST dog:MUT REL-bite 1SG.IND
'That's the dog that bit me.'
Absolutive pronouns are used:
I-tegu
3SG.ERG-scold
ndra'o
1SG.ABS
ama-gu
father-1SG.GEN
(northern dialect)[25]
I-tegu ndra'o ama-gu
3SG.ERG-scold 1SG.ABS father-1SG.GEN
'My father scolds me.'
Ata'u
afraid
nasu
dog:MUT
ndrao
1SG.ABS
(southern dialect)[26]
Ata'u nasu ndrao
afraid dog:MUT 1SG.ABS
'The dog is afraid of me.'
Genitive pronouns are used:
Löna
not
ahono
calm
ve-mörö-nia
NR:MUT-sleep-3SG.GEN
(southern dialect)[27]
Löna ahono ve-mörö-nia
not calm NR:MUT-sleep-3SG.GEN
'Her sleep was not restful.'
La-faigi
3PL.ERG-see
vamaoso-ra
NR:MUT:IPF:raise-3PL.GEN
(southern dialect)[28]
La-faigi vamaoso-ra
3PL.ERG-see NR:MUT:IPF:raise-3PL.GEN
'They watched them raise [it].'
U-fake
1SG.ERG-use
zekhula
coconut:MUT
ni-rökhi-nia
PASS-grate-3SG.GEN
(southern dialect)[29]
U-fake zekhula ni-rökhi-nia
1SG.ERG-use coconut:MUT PASS-grate-3SG.GEN
'I used the coconut which she grated.'
Ergative (realis) pronouns are used:
I-tataba
3SG.ERG-cut
geu
wood:MUT
(southern dialect)[30]
I-tataba geu
3SG.ERG-cut wood:MUT
'He cut up the wood.'
Irrealis pronouns are used in the southern dialect:
Gu-möi
1SG.IRR-go
ba
LOC
fasa
market
mahemolu
tomorrow
(southern dialect)[31]
Gu-möi ba fasa mahemolu
1SG.IRR-go LOC market tomorrow
'I want to go to the market tomorrow.'
Gu-moturagö
1SG.IRR-IRR:tell.about
ndraugö
2SG.ABS
khö-ra
DAT-3PL.GEN
(southern dialect)[32]
Gu-moturagö ndraugö khö-ra
1SG.IRR-IRR:tell.about 2SG.ABS DAT-3PL.GEN
'I'm going to tell them about you.'
In the northern dialect, the irrealis pronouns are restricted to third person, and are employed in what Sundermann (1913) calls "jussive" mood.
Ya-mu-'ohe
3SG.JUSS-JUSS-bring
(northern dialect)[33]
Ya-mu-'ohe
3SG.JUSS-JUSS-bring
'He shall bring it.'
Case marking of nouns is indicated in Nias by mutation of the initial consonant. Several consonants are subject to mutation as shown in the table below. Where a word begins in a vowel, either n or g is added before the vowel; the choice of n or g is lexically conditioned. (For example, öri ~ nöri is 'village federation', öri ~ göri is 'bracelet'.)[34]
Unmutated form | Mutated form |
---|---|
f | v |
t | d |
s | z |
c | |
k | g |
b | mb |
d | ndr |
vowel | n + vowel g + vowel |
Other consonants do not change.
The unmutated case form is used in citation. It further appears in all functions described above for independent pronouns:
Additionally, A arguments in independent transitive clauses appear in unmutated case, cross-referenced by the corresponding ergative or irrealis pronoun.
I-rino
3SG.ERG
vakhe
rice:MUT
ina-gu
mother-1SG.GEN
(southern dialect)[35]
I-rino vakhe ina-gu
3SG.ERG rice:MUT mother-1SG.GEN
'My mother cooked rice.'
The mutated case form of the noun corresponds in function to both the absolutive and the genitive pronouns:
Mate
die
zibaya-nia
uncle:MUT-3SG.GEN
meneßi
yesterday
(southern dialect; unmutated: sibaya)[36]
Mate zibaya-nia meneßi
die uncle:MUT-3SG.GEN yesterday
'His uncle died yesterday.'
I-rino
3SG.ERG
vakhe
rice:MUT
ina-gu
mother-1SG.GEN
(southern dialect; unmutated: fakhe)[35]
I-rino vakhe ina-gu
3SG.ERG rice:MUT mother-1SG.GEN
'My mother cooked rice.'
omo
house
ga'a-gu
older.sibling:MUT-1SG.GEN
(southern dialect; unmutated: ka'a)[37]
omo ga'a-gu
house older.sibling:MUT-1SG.GEN
'my brother's house'
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