| Tukang Besi | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Indonesia |
| Region | Sulawesi, Tukang Besi Archipelago |
Native speakers | (250,000 cited 1995)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either:khc – Tukang Besi Northbhq – Tukang Besi South |
| Glottolog | tuka1247 |
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Tukang Besi, or known in Indonesia by the termsPulo orWakatobi, is anAustronesian language spoken in theTukangbesi Islands in southeastSulawesi inIndonesia by a quarter million speakers. A Tukang Besi pidgin is used in the area.[2]
| Tukang Besi Pidgin | |
|---|---|
Native speakers | None |
Tukang Besi–based pidgin | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | pidg1257 |
The northern dialect of Tukang Besi has 25 consonantphonemes and a basic 5-vowel system.[3] It featuresstress which is usually on the second-to-last syllable. The language has twoimplosive consonants, which are uncommon in the world's languages. Thecoronal plosives and/s/ have prenasalized counterparts which act as separate phonemes.
| Bilabial | Dental/ Alveolar | Velar | Glottal | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||||
| Plosive | plain | p | b | t̪ | (d̪) | k | ɡ | ʔ |
| prenasalized | mp | mb | n̪t̪ | n̪d̪ | ŋk | ŋɡ | ||
| Implosive | ɓ | ɗ̪ | ||||||
| Fricative | plain | β | s | (z) | h | |||
| prenasalized | n̪s̪ | |||||||
| Trill | r | |||||||
| Lateral | l̪ | |||||||

Notes:
Tukang Besi does not have grammatical gender or number. It is anergative–absolutive language.
Tukang Besi has an inflectional future tense, which is indicated with a prefix, but no past tense.
Tukang Besi usesverb–object–subject word order, which is also used byFijian. Like many Austronesian languages, it has prepositions, but places adjectives, genitives, and determiners after nouns. Yes–no questions are indicated by a particle at the end of the sentence.[5]