Previous studies Language boundaries and dialects

6 A GRAMMAR OF THE MUNA LANGUAGE

1.2. The language

1.2.1. Previous studies

Until quite recently no substantial information was available on the language spoken on Muna. Using information from a Muna slave in central Sulawesi, Adriani, the pioneer of Sulawesian linguistics, wrote a few pages on Muna, focusing on historical phonology Adriani 1914:247-260. It is still unclear which dialect is described: possibly Tiworo but certainly not standard Muna. Furthermore there are quite a few errors in his analysis; he claims for instance that the infix -um- is dead, but still found in fumaa eat. Both statements are wrong. Considering the paucity of his data, such errors are understandable. The first real attempt to describe part of the grammar is Hanafi 1968, an unpublished IKIP thesis. Hanafi gives a good overview of the segmental phonology and analyses the system of verbal inflection. Many good insights are presented, such as the nature of subject inflection and the morphophonemics of -um-. Another unpublished IKIP thesis is Sidu Marafad 1976. He also limits himself to the system of verbal inflection. Sidu Marafad is the first to recognize the three different verb classes. In spite of some shortcomings, these two theses must be given the credit for the first systematic analysis of the intricate system of Muna verbal morphology. Another unpublished IKIP thesis on Muna verbal inflection is Piliha 1981. Starting in the late 1970s, some linguistic research was carried out in Muna under the supervision of the Balai Penelitian Bahasa in Ujung Pandang, a branch of the Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengembangan Bahasa in Jakarta. The resulting publications of these efforts are Yatim 1981, a birds eye view of the language, followed by volumes on morphosyntax Sande et al. 1986, verbal morphology Yatim et al. 1984, and a small Muna-Indonesian dictionary Mattalitti et al. 1985. Due to the short time allotted to each research team and the lack of funds, the quality of these works is not always satisfactory.

1.2.2. Language boundaries and dialects

In Van den Berg 1988, I have given an overview of the language situation on Muna and parts of Buton. Some of the information concerning the language boundaries and the dialect situation of Muna is repeated below. The dialect that is most widely spoken on Muna and enjoys the highest prestige is found in the central and northern part of the island. This dialect I call standard Muna. Standard Muna is spoken with remarkably little dia- lectal variation in a large area on Muna comprising the four kecamatans that made up the old Muna kingdom: Tongkuno, Kabawo, Lawa and Katobu. It is also the language of Tobea Besar, an island between Muna and the mainland of Southeast Sulawesi. In Sneddon 1982 Tobea Besar is mistakenly assigned to the Tolaki- speaking area. The Muna population on Tobea Besar consists of recent immigrants from central Muna. There is also a Bajau settlement; Bajau are also found on Tobea Kecil and Renda, two islands close to Tobea Besar. The eastern boundary of Muna is on northern Buton. All along the western coast of Buton kecamatan Wakorumba there are Muna settlements, some of which are said to have been founded by people from Loghia, a fishing village on Munas east coast, a few miles south of the capital Raha. They all speak standard Muna. It is unclear whether the southern boundary of these settlements coincides with the kecamatan boundary between Wakorumba and Kapontori. There is one village on the Wakorumba coast, Maligano, northeast of Raha, where the 1 GENERAL INTRODUCTION 7 original population speaks Taluki, a Bungku isolect which is about 75 cognate with Kulisusu, the closest Bungku language. To my knowledge, the existence of this isolect has never been reported. In northwest Muna a different dialect is found in kecamatan Tikep Tiworo Kepulauan on the Tiworo islands and around Kambara. The island population in the Tiworo archipelago is a mixture of Bajau, Bugis, Muna and people from Kadatua an island southwest of Baubau. A number of islands are uninhabited. On the mainland of Muna the dialect boundary between Tiworo and standard Muna runs through Marobea formerly Dandila, east of Kambara. Moving south we encounter a very important bundle of isoglosses which roughly coincides with an administrative boundary. The two southernmost kecamatans of Muna, Gu and Mawasangka, belong to the southern group of Muna dialects. Following Indonesian usage I will use the term Gumas to refer to these dialects. Certain villages, however, are exceptional in that they are located in the wrong area. Tampunawou in northwest Mawasangka is standard-Muna- speaking, whereas a few villages in southern Tongkuno, such as Wale-ale and Lawama, speak a Gumas dialect. The present dialect boundary runs right through Tongkunos capital Wakuru, and causes dialectal differences between generations. My impression is that the boundary is moving south, due to the influence of standard Muna in Wakuru. Gu and Mawasangka are occupied by a number of closely related subdialects. Gu shows the biggest number of dialectal differences in the whole Muna-speaking area. The village of Tolandona, located on the Buton Strait, is Wolio-speaking. Muna dialects are also found on two small islands southwest of Baubau, Kadatua and Siompu. Kadatua has a Gumas subdialect, but Siompu shows a different southern dialect. On Siompu another language is also found, Kaimbulawa. The middle island, Liwutongkidi small island, is uninhabited. Finally, a number of Muna dialects are spoken on the west coast of Buton, just north and south of Baubau. North of Baubau there are the fishing villages of Lowu-Lowu and Kalia-lia with slightly different Gumas dialects. South of Baubau we find Katobengke, Topa, Sulaa and Lawela, all speaking Gumas dialects. Moving further south, we first run into a separate language, Busoa, after which follow Laompo opposite Siompu and Burukene. These two closely related dialects are also part of the Gumas dialect complex. Muna speakers have also moved to other areas in Sulawesi, such as the Telaga islands off Kabaena, Kendari and Ujung Pandang. In Ambon there is also a group of Muna speakers from Batu Sori. Our present knowledge of the Muna dialect situation allows the following estimates of population figures. 1. Standard Muna 150,000 2. Tiworo dialect 10,000 3. Southern dialects a. Siompu 7,000 b. Gumas dialects 60,000 On Map 2 the boundaries of the Muna language and the dialects are indicated. The reasons for distinguishing these dialects and not more is partly because of lexico-statistics: these speech varieties all share more than 80 of their basic vocabulary. Secondly, there are important phonological differences between these dialects, summarized in the following chart, in which marks a glottal stop: 8 A GRAMMAR OF THE MUNA LANGUAGE Standard Muna | gh | h | r | Tiworo | h | h | r | Siompu | | | r | Gumas | | | h | Examples: Standard Muna | ghuse | dahu | rindi | foroghu Tiworo | huse | dahu | rindi | forohu Siompu | use | dau | rindi | forou Gumas | use | dau | hindi | fohou rain dog cold drink Other phonological differences concern, for example, palatalization of t before i and u, implosion of the alveolar stop and the existence of nc as a phoneme.

1.2.3. Subgrouping