| Sama–Bajaw | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution | Sulu Archipelago andCapul, between the Philippines , Borneo, Sulawesi, Indonesia |
| Linguistic classification | Austronesian
|
| Proto-language | Proto-Sama–Bajaw |
| Language codes | |
| Glottolog | sama1302 |
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TheSama–Bajaw languages are a well-established group of languages spoken by theSama-Bajau peoples (Aꞌa sama) of thePhilippines,Indonesia, andMalaysia. In Indonesia, these languages reflect a long-standing maritime heritage, illustrating the historical mobility of coastal peoples whose navigation across the Sulawesi, Flores, and Banda Seas helped define cultural and linguistic exchange within the archipelago.[1]
Grimes (2003) identifies nine Sama–Bajaw languages.
The first six are spoken in the Sulu region of the southern Philippines. Indonesian Bajau is spoken mainly inSulawesi and West Coast Bajau inSabah, Borneo. Several dialects of the languages can be identified.[2]
Blust (2006)[3] states that lexical evidence indicates that Sama–Bajaw originated in theBarito region of southeast Borneo, although not from any established group ofBarito languages.Ethnologue has followed, calling the resulting group 'Greater Barito'.
Pallesen (1985:18) classifies the Sama–Bajaw languages as follows.
TheEthnologue divides Sinama into seven languages based onmutual intelligibility. The seven Sinama languages are Northern Sinama, Central Sinama, Southern Sinama, Sinama Pangutaran from the island ofPangutaran off of Jolo island, Mapun, Bajau West Coast of Sabah and Bajau Indonesia. Jama Mapun, a language from the island ofMapun, formerly known as Cagayan de Sulu, is a related language and sometimes also referred to as Sinama. These classifications are rarely recognized by Sama themselves who instead classify their Sinama by the village or island it originates from. The emic classification of a Sama person's language e.g. Silumpak, Laminusa, Tabawan generally form the different dialects of the seven Sinama or Bajau languages.
Together, West Coast Bajau, Indonesian Bajau, and Mapun comprise aBorneo Coast Bajaw branch inEthnologue.
The following is a list of Sama-Bajaw dialects. Locations and demographics are from Palleson (1985)[4] andEthnologue (individual languages with separately assigned ISO codes highlighted inbold).
| Northern Sinama | Central Sinama | Southern Sinama | Sinama Pangutaran | Sinama Mapun | Bajau West Coast Sabah | Bajau Indonesia |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tagtabun Balangingiꞌ | Sama Kaulungan | Simunul | Pangutaran | Kota Belud | Torosiaje | |
| Tonquil Balangingiꞌ | Sama Dilaut | Sibutuꞌ | Ubian (North) | Tuaran | ||
| Linungan | Musuꞌ | Tandubas | Kudat | |||
| Panigayan Balangingiꞌ | Laminusa | Sitangkai | Pitas | |||
| Landang-Guaꞌ | Balimbing | Ubian (South) | ||||
| Sama Daongdong | Bannaran | Languyan | ||||
| Kawit Balangingiꞌ | Bangaw-Bangaw | Sapa-Sapa | ||||
| Karundung | Tabawan | Bongao/Sanga-Sanga/Pahut | ||||
| Pilas | Manubal | Berau East Kalimantan | ||||
| Silumpak | ||||||
| Kabingaꞌan |
West Coast Bajau (Borneo Coast Bajau) is distributed in the following locations ofSabah,Malaysia (Ethnologue).
Indonesian Bajau is widely distributed throughoutSulawesi andNusa Tenggara. It is also located throughoutMaluku Utara Province in theBacan Islands,Obi Islands,Kayoa, andSula Islands, which are located to the southwest ofHalmahera Island (Ethnologue).
Mapun is spoken on Cagayan de Sulu (Mapun) island,Tawi-Tawi, Philippines.
Ethnologue provides the following location information for various Sama languages.
Northern Sama is located in westernMindanao, theSulu archipelago northeast ofJolo, Zamboanga coast peninsula and islands, andBasilan island.
Central Sama is located in:
Southern Sama is located inTawi-Tawi Island Province (in Tawi-Tawi,Simunul,Sibutu, and other major islands) andEast Kalimantan (Berau)
Pangutaran Sama is spoken onPangutaran Island, located to the west ofJolo; and inCagayan de Tawi-Tawi, southern Palawan
Yakan is spoken inBasilan and small surrounding islands;Sakol island; and the eastern coast of Zamboanga. Yakan tends to be concentrated away from the coast.
Inabaknon is spoken onCapul Island,Northern Samar Province. Capul Island is located in theSan Bernardino Strait, which separatesSamar from theBicol Peninsula ofLuzon.
Bajau West Coast Sabah is spoken inKota Belud,Kudat, andTuaran which is onmutual intelligibility with Bajau East Coast of Sabah.
Ethnologue lists the following population statistics for Borneo Coast Bajau.
Western Austronesian languages are characterised by symmetricalvoice alternations. These differ from asymmetrical voice alternations, such as active and passive, since the voices can be considered equally transitive.[5] Hence, the termsactor voice andundergoer voice are sometimes used.
The voice construction is signalled through morphological marking on the verb.
Western Austronesian languages are typically subdivided into Philippine-type and Indonesian-type languages on the basis of the voice system:[6]
| Philippine-type | Indonesian-type |
|---|---|
| Multiple Undergoer Voices that map differentsemantic roles tosubject | Two symmetrical voices: Actor Voice and Undergoer Voice |
| AV has lower transitivity | Truepassive construction |
| Case marking of nominal arguments | Applicative suffixes |
The voice alternations in Sama–Bajaw languages have some characteristics of Philippine-type languages and some characteristics of Indonesian-type languages.[2]
Miller (2014) says that there are three main voice alternations in Sama-Bajaw:[7]
In many Philippine languages, the UV construction is said to be basic. This has led people to analyse the languages assyntactically ergative.[8] This analysis has been proposed for Sama Southern,[9] Yakan,[10] Sama Bangingiꞌ,[11] and Sama Pangutaran.[12] These languages are said to have Philippine-type voice systems.
West Coast Bajau, however, is said to have an Indonesian-type voice system because there are twotransitive voices; a true passive construction (-in-) and an applicative suffix (-an).[2] This makes West Coast Bajau more similar to the languages ofSarawak andKalimantan than the other languages of Sabah.[13]
Indonesian Bajau also has an Indonesian-type voice system as illustrated below:[14]
uggoꞌ
pig
ma
aku
ta-kita uggoꞌ ma aku
ACC.PASS-see pig OBL 1SG
'The pig was accidentally seen by me'
In some Sama–Bajau languages there are restrictions on how the non-AV actor is realised. For example, in Sama Bangingiꞌ the non-AV actor is typically a pronominalclitic in first or second person.[7]
The voice alternations in Sama–Bajau languages can also be accompanied by a change in thecase-marking of pronouns and a change inword-order.[2]
Sama–Bajau languages do not have case-marking on nominal arguments.
Nonetheless, pronouns have different forms depending on theirgrammatical function. Like the languages of Sarawak,[15] West Coast Bajau has two different pronoun sets:[2]
In contrast, most of the languages of Sabah have three sets of pronouns:[2]
In West Coast Bajau, the non-subject undergoer can be optionally realised using both the Set 1 and the Set 2 pronouns.[2]
Zero anaphora is possible for highly topical arguments, except the UV actor, which cannot be deleted.[2] This is common across Western Austronesian languages.[16]
Like the languages of the Philippines, the Sama–Bajaw languages in the Sulu tend to beverb-initial.[7] However, in most languages word order is flexible and depends on the voice construction. In the Sulu,SVO is only found in the context of preposednegatives andaspect markers. In West Coast Bajau, on the other hand, SVO word-order is also found in pragmatically neutral contexts.[7] This, again, makes West Coast Bajau more similar to the languages of Sarawak than the other languages of the Sama-Bajaw group.
Verheijen (1986) suggests that the Bajau language spoken in theLesser Sunda Islands has no fixed position of the subject but is fixed VO. The language has several properties that are said to correlate with VO word-order:[17]
The preferred word-orders for five Sama–Bajau languages are shown below. The word order is represented in terms of the semantic roles: actor (A) and undergoer (U).[7]
| AV word order | Zero UV word order | Affixed non-AV word order | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sama Bangingiꞌ | V A U | ||
| Central Sama | V A U (if A = pronoun) V U A (if A = full noun) | V A U | V U A or V A U |
| Southern Sama | V A U (if A = pronoun) V U A (if A = full noun) | V A U | V U A (V A U also possible) |
| Pangutaran Sama | V A U | V A U | V A U or V U A |
| West Coast Bajau | A V U | V A U or U V A | U V A (less often V A U) |
In all Sama–Bajau languages, the position of the actor is fixed, directly following the verb in the zero UV construction. Elsewhere, the order of actor and undergoer depends on theanimacy of the arguments.[7] This could be seen to follow the Philippine tendency to place actors first in the clause.[18]
If we rephrase these orders in terms of grammatical function, a number of Sama–Bajau languages could be said to be VOS languages. S is equivalent to the actor in AV and the undergoer in UV. O is equivalent to the non-subject core argument.
Variant word-orders are permitted in Sama–Bajau languages. The different word-orders have differentinformation structure interpretations. This differs depending on the voice of the clause.
Miller (2007) suggests that verb-initial order in West Coast Bajau UV clauses strongly correlates with foregrounding.[2] He argues that this is the basic word order given that the undergoer in final position does not have a specific pragmatic status. In contrast, fronted undergoers are highly active and accessible.[2] Both SVO andVOS orders occur with equal frequency in narrative texts, though VOS is highly preferred in foregrounded clauses.[2]
AV clauses are predominantly subject-initial regardless of grounding.[2] In fact, SVO is the only word-order permitted in subordinate clauses. Where verb-initial clauses in AV do occur, however, they typically represent key sequences of action in the storyline.[2]
There are alsospecificity effects in AV verb-initial word order. VOS is acceptable when the non-subject undergoer is non-specific, but sometimes considered unacceptable if the undergoer is specific.[2] The same is true fordefinite undergoers.[2] However, the effects are not found when the word-order isVSO and the undergoer is in final position. In this case, the structure is grammatical regardless of whether the undergoer is definite/specific or not.
In West Coast Bajau, it is possible for subjects, obliques and adjuncts to appear pre-verbally. Only non-subject arguments cannot appear in this position. Miller (2007: 193) suggests that there are two positions pre-verbally:topic andfocus. Topic represents presupposed information whilst focus represents new information. In both AV and UV clauses, the preverbal subjects can be either topic or focus. Obliques, on the other hand, are always focus.
Consequently, Miller (2007: 211) analyses the clause structure of West Coast Bajau as follows:[2]
Pragmatic structure of West Coast Bajau
| FOCUS | TOPIC | PRED |
|---|
The preverbal focus position can be followed by focus particles such asno.[2]
Sinama languages have 21 to 24phonemes. All Sinama languages[specify] have 17consonants. Each language has from five to sevenvowels.[citation needed]
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k | ʔ | |
| voiced | b | d | dʒ | ɡ | ||
| Fricative | s | h | ||||
| Lateral | l | |||||
| Semivowel | w | j | ||||
The consonants of the Sinama languages are represented by the letters b, d, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, ng, p, r, s, t, w, y and '.
Representation of the glottal stop in Sinama has not yet reached a consensus among Sinama speakers. Linguists have suggested the use of an apostrophe-like character (⟨ꞌ⟩) for word final glottal stops. Central Sinama has adopted this for glottal stops in between vowels as well (i.e.aꞌa, the Sinama word for 'human'). Other Sinama languages have chosen to follow Tagalog orthography and to leave this vowel medial glottal stop ambiguous. Sinama speakers often spell the word final glottal stop with an h at the end. Sinama speakers in Malaysia may also spell it with a⟨k⟩ following the vowel softening patterns ofBahasa Melayu.
In certain dialects of Sinama/b/ becomes[β] and/ɡ/ becomes[ɣ] when found between two vowels. Allophones of/d,s,l/ are heard as [ɾ,ʃ,ɭ].[19]
The vowels a, e, i, o, and u are found in all Sinama languages and dialects. In addition to these five vowels, ə and ɤ are found in one or more Sinama language.
| a | e | i | o | u | ə | ɤ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Northern[20] | a | e | i | o | u | ||
| Central[21] | a | e | i | o | u | ꞌ | |
| Southern[22] | a | e | i | o | u | ||
| Pangutaran[23] | a | e | i | o | u | ꞌ | ō |
| Jama Mapun[24] | a | e | i | o | u |
Allophones of/i,e,a,o,u/ are heard as[ɪ,ɛ,ʌ,ɔ,ʊ].
Many of the Sinama languages have contrastive vowel lengthening. This is represented by a macron over the vowel (⟨ā ē ī ō ū⟩).
Sinama pronunciation is quite distinct from other nearby languages such asTausug andTagalog in that all of the Sinama languages primary stress occurs on the penultimate syllable of the word.[4]: 124 Stress will remain on the penultimate syllable even with the addition of suffixes including enclitic pronouns. In Northern Sinama (Balanguingiꞌ) the stress will shift to the ultima when the penult is the mid central vowel/ə/.
The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd singular pronouns-ku,-nu and-na respectively, the 1st plural inclusive pronouns-ta and-tam, as well as the 2nd plural pronoun-bi are all enclitics.[25] These enclitic pronouns change the pronunciation by shifting the stress of a word through the addition of a syllable; a verb or noun combined with a suffixed one syllable enclitic pronoun. Some Sinama orthographies represent this by writing both noun/verb and pronoun as one word e.g.lumaꞌta for 'our house' in Central Sinama. Other orthographies represent this with a hypen e.g.lumaꞌ-ta for 'our house' in Southern Sinama. Still others write this keeping the noun/verb separate from the prounoun e.g.lumaꞌ ta for 'our house' in Northern Sinama.
The following are the sounds of West Coast Bajau:
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k | ʔ | |
| voiced | b | d | dʒ | ɡ | ||
| Fricative | s | |||||
| Rhotic | r | |||||
| Lateral | l | |||||
| Semivowel | w | j | ||||
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Close-mid | e | o | |
| Mid | ə | ||
| Open | a |
The vowel sounds/iue/ are heard as[ɪʊɛ] within closed syllables.[26]
Proto-Sama-Bajaw is reconstructed in Pallesen (1985). Pallesen (1985) considers the homeland of Proto-Sama-Bajaw to be in theBasilan Strait area, around 800 AD.
The lyrics of the song calledKiriring Pakiriring (popularly known asDayang Dayang) were written in the Simunul dialect of the Southern Sinama language.
Central Sinama and Southern Sinama are two of six languages used in the 2012 Filipino drama filmThy Womb.
Sinama is featured on the 1991 edition of thePhilippine one thousand peso bill.Langgal is written under a picture of a Sama place of worship.Langgal is the Sinama for that place of worship.
