Sawai language

The Sawai language (also Weda) is a South Halmahera language of the Austronesian language family spoken in the Weda and Gane Timor districts of southern Halmahera, northern Maluku Province, Indonesia. There are approximately 12,000 speakers.

Sawai
Weda
Native to	Indonesia
Region	North Maluku province
Native speakers	12,000 (2000)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian Eastern Malayo-Polynesian South Halmahera–West New Guinea Halmahera Sea South Halmahera Buli Sawai
Dialects	Weda Sawai Kobe Faya-Mafa Messa-Dote
Language codes
ISO 639-3	szw
Glottolog	sawa1247

Sounds

Below is a description of the Kobe dialect of Sawai spoken in the villages of Lelilef Woyebulan and Kobe Peplis, as well as from Whistler (1995).

Consonants

Sawai has 15 consonants:

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Stop	p  b	t  d		k  ɡ
Fricative	f	s
Nasal	m	n		ŋ
Semivowel	w		j
Liquid		l  ɾ

Vowels

Sawai has eight vowels:

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
High-Mid	e	ə	o
Low-Mid	ɛ		ɔ
Low		a

Syllable

Sawai has the following syllable structure:

(C)(C)V(C)

Examples:

word	gloss	syllable type
/i/	's/he/it'	V
/in/	'fish'	VC
/wo/	'alcoholic drink'	CV
/npo/	's/he/it gives'	CCV
/kot/	'magic statue'	CVC
/nfan/	's/he/it goes'	CCVC

Bibliography

• Burquest, Donald A.; & Laidig, Wyn D. (Eds.). (1992). Phonological studies in four languages of Maluku. The Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington publications in linguistics (No. 108). Dallas: The Summer Institute of Linguistics, The University of Texas at Arlington, and Pattimura University. ISBN 0-88312-803-9.
• Whistler, Ronald. (1992). Phonology of Sawai. In D. A. Burquest & W. D. Laidig (Eds.), Phonological studies in four languages of Maluku (pp. 7–32). Dallas: The Summer Institute of Linguistics, The University of Texas at Arlington, and Pattimura University.
• Whistler, Ronald; & Whistler, Jacqui. (1995). Sawai: Introduction and wordlist. In D. T. Tryon (Ed.), Comparative Austronesian dictionary: An introduction to Austronesian studies (part 1: fascicle 1, pp. 659–65). Trends in linguistics, Documentation (No. 10). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.