NIAS LANGUAGE
The Nias
language is an Austronesian language
spoken on Nias Island and the Batu Islands off the west coast of Sumatra in Indonesia. It belongs to the Northwest
Sumatran subgroup which also includes Mentawai and the Batak languages. It had about 770,000 speakers in 2000. There are three main dialects: northern, central and southern.
Contents
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Grammar
Nias has an ergative–absolutive
alignment. Unusually, it appears to be the absolutive
(mutated) case which is marked, against the near-universal tendency to mark the
ergative.
There are no
adjectives in Nias, with that function taken by
verbs.
Nias shows consonant mutation
at the beginning of nouns and some other classes of words to show grammatical case. 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'.)
Initial mutations
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Base form
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Mutated form
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f
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v
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t
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d
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s
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z
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c
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k
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g
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b
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mb
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d
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ndr
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vowel
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n + vowel
g + vowel |
Other
consonants do not change.
The
unmutated form is used in citation. The mutated form only occurs on the first
noun in a noun phrase (that is, not after a conjunction like 'and'). It is used
for:
- absolutive case (with a transitive verb, only in a main clause; with an intransitive verb, also in dependent clauses)
- possessor (nouns only; pronouns take a genitive case)
- object of most prepositions (pronouns take the genitive)
- both arguments of some experiencer verbs, such as:
a-ta'u
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mba'e
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nono
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stative-fear
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monkey.ABS
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child.ABS
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'The monkey is afraid of the child'
Besides
being the citation form, the unmutated form is used for:
- ergative case
- both arguments (A and P) in a dependent transitive clause
- predicate nominal (with a copula)
- with löna 'to not exist'
- after some prepositions (such as faoma 'with (intrumental)')
- topic
Phonology
The southern
dialect of Nias has the following phonemes:
Vowels
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Front
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Сentral
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Back
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Close
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i
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u
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Mid
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e
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⟨ö⟩ ɤ
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o
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Open
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a
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||
Consonants
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||||||
Labial
|
Dental/
Alveolar |
Palato-
alveolar |
Palatal
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Velar
|
Glottal
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|
Nasal
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m
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n
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||||
Stop
|
b
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t
d ⟨ndr⟩ [dʳ] |
⟨c⟩ [tʃ]
⟨z⟩ [dÊ’] |
k
É¡ |
⟨'⟩ [Ê”]
|
|
Fricative
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ɸ
β |
s
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⟨kh⟩ [x]
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h
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||
Approximant
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⟨ß⟩ [Ê‹]
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l
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⟨y⟩ [j]
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w
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||
Trills
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⟨mb⟩ [Ê™]
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r
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||||
The status
of initial [Ê”] is not determined; there are no phonetic vowel-initial words in
Nias. Northern Nias has /Å‹/ but not /c/; in addition, /z/ is pronounced [z].
Some common Nias languages which are usually used in daily conversation:
1. Yahowu/ Yaahowu (Hi, hello)
2. Hadia duria? (How are you?)
3. Ha'uga bözi? (What time is it now?)
4. Olofodo (I am hungry)
5. Omasido khömö (I love you)
6. Saohagölö (Thank you)
7. Molombase (take a rest)
8. Owökhi dödögu (I am thirsty)
9. Manga ita (Let's eat)
10. Mofanö ita (Let's go)
Numbers:
1 (sara), 2 (dua), 3 (tölu), 4 (öfa), 5 (lima), 6 (önö), 7 (fitu), 8 (walu), 9 (siwa) 10 (fulu)
Personal Pronouns:
Ya'odo (I), Ya'ugö (You), Ya'ia (He/She), Ya'ita (We), Ya'ira (They)
Nouns:
Ira matua (Man), Ira alawe (Woman), Ono alawe (Girl/ Young woman), Ono matua (Boy/ Young Man), Kefe (Money), Idanö (Water), etc.
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nias_language)
Some common Nias languages which are usually used in daily conversation:
1. Yahowu/ Yaahowu (Hi, hello)
2. Hadia duria? (How are you?)
3. Ha'uga bözi? (What time is it now?)
4. Olofodo (I am hungry)
5. Omasido khömö (I love you)
6. Saohagölö (Thank you)
7. Molombase (take a rest)
8. Owökhi dödögu (I am thirsty)
9. Manga ita (Let's eat)
10. Mofanö ita (Let's go)
Numbers:
1 (sara), 2 (dua), 3 (tölu), 4 (öfa), 5 (lima), 6 (önö), 7 (fitu), 8 (walu), 9 (siwa) 10 (fulu)
Personal Pronouns:
Ya'odo (I), Ya'ugö (You), Ya'ia (He/She), Ya'ita (We), Ya'ira (They)
Nouns:
Ira matua (Man), Ira alawe (Woman), Ono alawe (Girl/ Young woman), Ono matua (Boy/ Young Man), Kefe (Money), Idanö (Water), etc.
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nias_language)
References
1. ^ a b Lewis, M. Paul (ed.), 2009.
Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Sixteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL
International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com/.
2. ^ Brown, Lea (1997) Nominal Mutation in Nias. In: Odé, Cecilia
& Wim Stokhof (1997) Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference
on Austronesian Linguistics, Rodopi, Amsterdam. ISBN 90-420-0253-0.
3. ^ a b c d Brown, Lea (2005) Nias.
In: Adelaar, Alexander & Nikolaus P. Himmelmann (eds.) (2005) The Austronesian Languages of Asia and Madagascar,
Routledge, Abingdon. ISBN 0-7007-1286-0.
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