Acehnese, the language spoken by the Acehnese people of Aceh, Indonesia, has a large vowel inventory compared to Indonesian, with ten oral monophthong vowels,[1] twelve oral diphthongs,[2] seven nasal monophthong vowels,[3] and five nasal diphthongs.[4]

A trio of Acehnese speakers.

Vowels

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Native-speaking linguists divide vowels in Acehnese into several categories: oral monophthongs, oral diphthongs (which are further divided into the ones ending with /ə/ and with /i/), nasal monophthongs, and nasal diphthongs.[5]

Oral vowels

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Oral monophthong vowels in Acehnese are shown in the table below.[6]

Front Central Back
Close i ɯ u
Close-mid e ə o
Open-mid ɛ ʌ ɔ
Open a

Oral diphthong vowels ending with /ə/ are shown in the table below.[7]

Front Central Back
/iə/ /ɯə/ /uə/
/ɛə/ /ʌə/ /ɔə/

Oral diphthong vowels ending with /i/ are shown in the table below.[8]

Central Back
/ui/
/əi/ /oi/
/ʌi/ /ɔi/
/ai/

Nasal vowels

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Nasal monophthong vowels in Acehnese are shown in the table below.[9]

Front Central Back
Close ĩ ɯ̃ ũ
Open-mid ɛ̃ ʌ̃ ɔ̃
Open ã

Consonants

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The table below shows the Acehnese consonant phonemes and the range of their realizations.[10]

Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal plain m n ɲ ŋ
post-stopped (mᵇ) (nᵈ) (ɲᶡ) (ŋᶢ)
Plosive voiceless p t c k ʔ
voiced b d ɟ ɡ
Fricative voiceless f s ʃ h
voiced z
Approximant l j w
Trill r

Notes:

  • Syllable-final k always represents /ʔ/ save in certain recent loans
  • /f/, /z/, and /ʃ/ are borrowed sounds, and are often replaced by /ph/, /d/, and /ch/ respectively
  • The nasals /m/, /n/, /ɲ/, /ŋ/ are realized as post-stopped nasals (also called "funny nasals") before oral vowels and consonants.[11][12] They are distinct from the nasal-stop sequences /mb/, /nd/, /ɲɟ/, /ŋɡ/, e.g. in /banᵈa/ 'port' vs /mandum/ 'all'.[13] The orthography does not distinguish these sounds.

Orthography

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The orthography of Achenese features 31 letters: the 26 letters of the basic Latin alphabet, è, é, ë, ô, and ö.

Vowels
Grapheme Phoneme
(IPA)
Open syllable Closed syllable
a /a/ ba /ba/ ‘carry’ bak /baʔ/ ‘at, tree’
e /ə/ le /lə/ ‘many’ let /lət/ ‘pull out’
é /e/ baté /bate/ ‘cup, betel tray’ baték /bateʔ/ ‘batik’
è /ɛ/ bèe /bɛə/ ‘smell’ bèk /bɛʔ/ ‘prohibitive "don't" (e.g. bèk neupajôh boh gantang teucrôh lôn 'don't you eat my fries')'
eu /ɯ/ keu /kɯ/ ‘for’ keuh /kɯh/ ‘so (e.g. nyan keuh), pronominal affix for second person (e.g. droe-keuh)’
i /i/ di /di/ 'in, from' dit /dit/ 'few, small amount'
o /ɔ/ yo /jɔ/ ‘afraid’ yok /jɔʔ/ ‘shake’
ô /o/ /ro/ ‘spill’ rôh /roh/ ‘enter’
ö /ʌ/ /pʌ/ ‘fly’ pöt /pʌt/ ‘pluck, pick’
u /u/ su /su/ ‘sound, voice’ cut /cut/ ‘small’

Notes

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  1. ^ Pillai & Yusuf (2012:1030), citing Asyik (1987:17)
  2. ^ Pillai & Yusuf (2012:1031), citing Asyik (1987:17–18)
  3. ^ Pillai & Yusuf (2012:1032), citing Asyik (1987:17)
  4. ^ Pillai & Yusuf (2012:1032), citing Asyik (1987:17)
  5. ^ Pillai & Yusuf (2012:1031), citing Asyik (1987:17–18)
  6. ^ Pillai & Yusuf (2012:1031), citing Asyik (1987:17)
  7. ^ Pillai & Yusuf (2012:1031), citing Asyik (1987:17–18)
  8. ^ Pillai & Yusuf (2012:1031), citing Asyik (1987:17–18)
  9. ^ Pillai & Yusuf (2012:1033), citing Asyik (1987:17)
  10. ^ Asyik (1982:3)
  11. ^ Durie (1984:24)
  12. ^ Asyik (1982:2)
  13. ^ Long & Maddieson (1993) "Consonantal evidence against Quantal Theory", UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 83, p. 144.

References

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  • Asyik, Abdul Gani (1982). "The Agreement System in Acehnese" (PDF). Mon-Khmer Studies. 11: 1–33. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 February 2012.
  • Asyik, Abdul Gani (1987). A Contextual Grammar of Acehnese Sentences (PDF) (PhD thesis). The University of Michigan. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 July 2011.
  • Durie, Mark (1984). A grammar of Acehnese (PhD thesis). Australian National University. doi:10.25911/5d6fa25bcc31c. hdl:1885/138059.
  • Lawler, John M. (1977). "A Agrees with B in Achenese: A Problem for Relational Grammar". In Cole, P.; Sacock, J. (eds.). Grammatical Relations. Syntax and Semantics 8. New York: Academic Press. pp. 219–248. doi:10.1163/9789004368866_010.
  • Pillai, Stefanie; Yusuf, Yunisrina Qismullah (2012). "An Instrumental Analysis of Acehnese Oral Vowels" (PDF). Language and Linguistics. 13 (6): 1029–1050. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 October 2017. Retrieved 31 October 2014.