The usual sound of Mori e can best be described as corresponding with that of a protracted Dutch i as in Dutch pit. The same sound is encountered in Malay memang and elok. When e occurs in a half-closed syllable preceding
the stressed syllable, the sound is usually the same as that of the just-mentioned Dutch i, as in for example mentia ‘pregnant’. Otherwise, e in a half-closed syllable and in certain other cases sounds the same as the e in Dutch rem,
eng, etc., as in for example tembi ‘carry strap’ also the name of the tree from which it is made, kendo ‘tired’, versus mongkeke ‘dig’, lewe ‘leaf’. When e is immediately followed by another vowel except e, then it sounds like
the first e in Dutch zeven, as in for example eu ‘substitute, replacement’.
Mori i always has the sound of Dutch ie in zien and of Malay i in kira. The usual pronunciation of Mori o is the same as Malay o in lobang. Sometimes the o sounds somewhat more
muted especially in half-closed syllables, as in for example songka ‘order, command’, londa ‘bald’, versus olo ‘between space’, lobo ‘temple’. Sometimes the pronunciation is similar to that of o in Dutch boven, as in for
example modoa ‘count’. This is the case when it is followed by a, e, i or u, but [p. 13]
in the sequence oi usually only when the stem consists only of two syllables. Otherwise as a rule oi sounds roughly the same as Dutch oi, as in
for example uwoi ‘water’, mohohoi ‘make noise’, mo’onsoi ‘block the way of’ as in this last example, even when the secondary stem contains the suffix -i, versus monsoi ‘fold’ in the manner one folds a leaf to make a drinking
cup, etc. in which oi sounds roughly like Dutch ooi. An exception is koroi ‘body’, in which oi has the same enunciation as in soi ‘fold’.
The pronunciation of Mori u is the same as that of Dutch oe and Malay u.
15. G
LIDES
. An unwritten soft y is heard where in the writing an e is immediately followed by an a, i, o or u, or an i by an a, e, o or u, namely as a glide between vowels. Likewise a soft bilabial w is heard as a glide between u
and any following vowel other than u. Between o and a following vowel other than o a soft [w]
7
is formed which, however, is sometimes barely audible particularly in the sequence oi. These glide sounds are no more required to
be written than that which develops between a and a following e, i, o or u.
16. C
ONSONANTS
. The pronunciation of the consonants in general do not differ from those of Malay which are written in the same way. Thus for k, g, ngk, ngg, ng, p, b, mp, mb, m and the supra-dentals t, d, nt, nd, n, and ns. In a
portion of the language area, however, namely in Malili, one hears a pronunciation of nd which recalls Bugis nr, and which could be rendered as ndr.
8
It is not improbable that this pronunciation is to be ascribed to Bugis influence. To be sure, one hears the sound as an idiosyncratic pronunciation in areas where this cannot be the case,
but these still constitute exceptions, whereas in Malili this pronunciation appears to be general. Now from of old the aforementioned regions have been subject to Bugis rule the Datu of Luwu, and the Bugis influence has been great.
If one is dealing here with a purely Mori innovation, then it is surprising that it appears to be so especially confined to the Malili area Padoe, Nuha, Karunsi’e, Tambee. Moreover, of the Mori from this region whom I interviewed,
one exhibited the phenomenon in stronger measure than the other. Examples: andri ‘younger sibling’ Tambee, indri’ipua ‘day before yesterday, formerly’ Karunsi’e, aandro ‘no longer’ Padoe, Tambee.
Moreover a light, palatalized pronunciation is characteristic before nd and nt whenever they half-close a syllable, which pronunciation they also have in other Indonesian languages,
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and which the Amsterdammer will have no trouble
[p. 14] affecting although Amsterdam speech exhibits this phenomenon in much stronger measure,
and which also extends for example to the pronunciation of s.
7
[footnote 1, p. 13] Square brackets indicate phonetic transcription.
8
[footnote 2, p. 13] The two sounds are probably identical or at least varieties of the same sound.
9
[footnote 3, p. 13] Van Ophuysen 1915:48–49 considers this peculiarity to be dialectal in Malay I myself have regularly heard the palatalized pronunciation of n as coda, nt and nd in the Malay such as is spoken in the Celebes. Van Ophuysen is
incorrect in his opinion that the altered pronunciation concerns only the vowel. Indeed it is heard only when the syllable is closed or half-closed thus in Malay t
ĕman, kĕbon, but not in mana; so also this pronunciation is not found with Mori n, which after all can never close the syllable, but characteristic for this phenomenon on the contrary is that the consonant in question is
pronounced with the tongue in the i-position; see Jespersen 1920:127.
Mori ns is never pronounced palatalized, no more than in Malay for that matter, where ngs is encountered next to ns.
Mori l is also a supra-dental, that is to say, formed with the tongue against the teeth roots Zahnfortsatz, Zahndamm. It creates no difficulty for pronunciation. Mori r in general is usually [r], that is to say, ‘rolled’. The
place where the tip of the tongue is found in the formation of this sound is somewhat higher than with l, in other words, Mori r is pre-palatal, which for that matter is the usual pronunciation of [r]. It goes almost without saying
that also in Mori individual differences appear in the pronunciation of this sound.
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The glottal stop ’, formed by narrowing of the larynx, is the onset sound of every syllable, assuming the vowel is not bound to the preceding vowel by a glide or “Tal” see footnote 4. For economy, the mark for glottal
stop ’ is not written at the beginning of a word. The glottal stop in Mori sounds the same as the consonant which is indicated by dieresis in the Dutch word geëerd which word would, following the Mori convention, be spelled
ge’eerd. Compare tai ‘not’ and ta’i ‘dung’, molaa ‘spaced far apart, seldom’ and Upper Mori mola’a ‘put one’s foot on something’.
The h is a rather forceful sound in Mori, both word initially and intervocalically. One must be on guard against a weak pronunciation of h in the middle of a word—which Europeans easily incline toward—and speak h as clearly
in lahi ‘too’ as in hule ‘heart’. In mehahi ‘scratch oneself’ and mohohoi ‘make noise’, both h’s are pronounced in the same, very forceful way.
The Mori w is a spirant, namely a bilabial [ β]. It is similar to Dutch v, but differs therefrom in that the upper
teeth do not touch the lower lip. Theoretically the spelling v for this sound possibly deserves preference, but in fact the spelling w had been adopted, and there was insufficient motivation to warrant making changes therein, all the
more as w is also employed in Pamona, and even though the Pamona sound is labiodental, practically speaking the difference is very slight.
17. S
