Muna is anAustronesian language spoken principally on the island ofMuna as well as North-westButon Island, off the southeast coast ofSulawesi in Indonesia.^[2] The language is well-documented, especially by linguist René van den Berg. In 2010, the language had around 270,000 speakers.^[1]

Muna belongs to theMuna–Buton subgroup, which is a branch of the largerCelebic subgroup.^[3] Within the Muna–Buton languages, Muna is the largest member of theMunic subbranch, which also includes smaller languages such asPancana,Kioko,Liabuku,Kaimbulawa, andBusoa.^[4][5]

Muna forms a dialect web with the other languages of Sulawesi and Buton.

Muna has three dialects:

• The "Standard" Muna is the most widely spoken, found in the northern and central part of Muna Island, as well as on the northwestern coast of Buton Island and in 1989 had around 150,000 speakers^[2]
• theTiworo dialect, spoken on Muna in the northwestern Tikep district with about 10,000 speakers
• southern Muna, with two subdialects: andSiompu (~7000 speakers) and the variousGumas dialects (~60,000 speakers)

Differences between these dialects are mostly lexical, but also phonological.^[2]

In theEthnologue database, Muna is classified "threatened" in category 6b, meaning "The language is used for face-to-face communication within all generations, but it is losing users."^[1] The language of instruction in academia in Muna-speaking areas in Indonesian, except in lower forms but Muna is being taught in some primary schools and thus being acquired by the next generation.

Despite the fact that Indonesian is used in schools, Muna is the dominant language and is spoken in all other areas. The vast majority of the population of Muna is fluent in the languages, but not all are fluent in Indonesian^[2] Despite its small population and the fact that it is not used as the main medium of instruction in schools, the Muna language does not seem to be in immediate danger. Its population of fluent speakers on the island has stayed fairly stable between 1989 and 2007.^[2]

Muna has the following consonant phonemes.

Notes:

• The phoneme/ʋ/ is realized as alabiodental approximant[ʋ] before unrounded vowels, and as abilabial approximant[β̞] before rounded vowels.
• In rapid speech, the sequences/bu,pu,mbu,mpu/ have trilled allophones[ʙu,ʙ̥u,mʙu,mʙ̥u] in stressed position.
• In the alveolar column,/t/ and/ⁿt/ are actuallyapico-dental.^[2]

The vowel inventory comprises five vowels:/a/,/i/,/u/,/e/,/o/. They can freely combine into sequences of two or three vowels. Sequences of two like vowels are pronounced as a long vowel, e.g.tuu[tu:] 'knee'. In sequences of three vowels, there is an optional non-phonemic glottal stop after the first vowel, e.g.nokoue[noko(ʔ)ue] 'it has veins'.^[2]

Like many otherlanguages on Sulawesi,^[6] Muna only has open syllables of the types CV (consonant-vowel) and V (vowel), e.g.kaindea/ka.i.ⁿde.a/ 'plantation',padamalala/pa.da.ma.la.la/ 'citronella',akumadiuandae/a.ku.ma.di.u.a.ⁿda.e/ 'I will wash them with it'.^[2] Loanwords from Malay/Indonesian and other source languages are adapted to the syllable structure of Muna:karadhaa/karad̪aa/ < Malaykerja 'work',kantori/kaⁿtori/ < Malaykantor 'office' (from Dutchkantoor),wakutuu/wakutuu/ < Malaywaktu 'time' (from Arabicwaqt).^[2]

Verbs areinflected formood andperson (of both subject and object). Person marking is strictlynominative–accusative: person marking prefixes indicate the subject of transitive and intransitive verbs, while person marking suffixes are used to mark the direct and indirect object.^[2]

There are three verb classes, which have slightly different forms for the subject prefix. The classes are named after the first person singular prefix.^[2]

Forae-class andao-class verbs, mood is only distinguished by the use of the respective subject prefix:^[2]

de-basa 'we read' (realis) ~dae-basa 'we will read' (irrealis)

no-lodo 'he sleeps' (realis) ~nao-lodo 'he will sleep' (irrealis)

Witha-class verbs, irrealis mood is additionally marked by the infix<um>:

no-horo 'it flies' (realis) ~na-h<um>oro 'it will fly' (irrealis)

Intransitive verbs mostly employa-class orao-class prefixes. As a general rule,a-class verbs aredynamic intransitive verbs, whileao-class verbs arestative intransitive verbs. With a few exceptions,transitive verbs useae-class prefixes with an indefinite object, buta-class prefixes with a definite object.^[2]

ne-ala-mo kapulu 'He took a machete' (indefinite,ae-class prefix)

no-ala-mo kapulu-no 'He took his machete' (definite,a-class prefix)

There are two sets of object suffixes, marking direct and indirect objects.

Combinations of two suffixes are restricted to indirect object suffixes + the third person singular direct object suffix-e:

a-ghumoli-angko-e 'I will buy it for you.'

• van den Berg, René (2004). "Notes on the southern Muna dialect". In John Bowden; Nikolaus Himmelmann (eds.).Papers in Austronesian subgrouping and dialectology. Pacific Linguistics 563. Canberra: Australian National University. pp. 129–170.doi:10.15144/PL-563.129.
• van den Berg, René; Sidu Marafad, La Ode."Muna Dictionary, trilingual (Muna, English, Indonesian)".Webonary. SIL International. Retrieved5 January 2024.

• Muna–Buton languages
• Languages of Sulawesi

• Language articles citing Ethnologue 25
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