Grapheme Data for Tolaki written with Latin script
Tolaki (LBW) is a Celebic language (Austronesian › Malayo-Polynesian › Celebic) spoken by over 330,000 people in Southeast Sulawesi province, central Indonesia (see entry in Ethnologue). This data is for the Konawe and Mekongga dialacts, thus covering nearly 100% of the language community.
The phonemic inventory is taken from Tolaki Phonology by David Mead and Tambunan (unpublished typescript, 1993), and Tolaki Phonology by Owen Edwards (draft, 2013). The orthography was developed and tested by Scott Youngman (1995-2013).
Where Mead and Tambunan’s phonemic analysis differs from Edwards, I have followed the former and made a note (applies to graphemes ‹b›, ‹d›, ‹e›, and ‹w›).
Contributed by: Scott Youngman, June 12, 2013.
| Grapheme | USV | Phoneme | Status | Example | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| <'> | 0027 | /ʔ/ | expected | ra'i ‘face’, wu'ohu ‘new’ | Grapheme is straight, not the curved “smart” single quote mark |
| <a> | 0061 | /a/ | expected | ata ‘slave’, bake ‘skeleton’ | |
| <b> | 0062 | /b/ | expected | baka ‘molar’, bibi ‘lip’ | Edwards chose the voiced {em:implosive} stop as the phoneme rather than the voiced plosive. |
| <c> | 0063 | /tʃ/ | uncommon | cewe ‘girl’ | In words borrowed from Indonesian, which uses the grapheme ‹c› for this phoneme |
| <d> | 0064 | /d/ | expected | dahu ‘dog’, hada ‘monkey’ | Edwards chose the voiced {em:implosive, post}-alveolar stop as the phoneme rather than the voiced alveolar plosive. |
| <e> | 0065 | /e/ | expected | ehe ‘like’, hule ‘heart’ | Edwards chose /ɛ/ as the phoneme rather than /e/. |
| <g> | 0067 | /g/ | expected | gola ‘sugar’, bage ‘way of doing s.t.’ | |
| <h> | 0068 | /h/ | expected | haka ‘root’, ahu ‘smoke’ | |
| <i> | 0069 | /i/ | expected | ihi ‘contents’, pitu ‘seven’ | |
| <j> | 006A | /dʒ/ | uncommon | juta ‘million’ | In words borrowed from Indonesian, which uses the grapheme ‹j› for this phoneme |
| <k> | 006B | /k/ | expected | kare ‘leg, foot’, haki ‘pain’ | |
| <l> | 006C | /l/ | expected | lako ‘go’, dale ‘luck, fortune’ | |
| <mb> | 006D 0062 | /ᵐb/ | expected | mbule ‘return’, omba ‘four’ | |
| <m> | 006D | /m/ | expected | manu ‘chicken’, ramo ‘meat’ | |
| <nd> | 006E 0064 | /ⁿd̪/ | expected | ndee ‘usually’, pundi ‘banana’ | |
| <ngg> | 006E 0067 0067 | /ᵑg/ | expected | nggiro'o ‘that’, bunggu ‘back, rear’ | |
| <ng> | 006E 0067 | /ŋ/ | expected | ngisi ‘tooth’, wingi ‘night’ | |
| <n> | 006E | /n/ | expected | nohu ‘mortar’, ana ‘child’ | |
| <o> | 006F | /ɔ/ | expected | one ‘sand’, sao ‘snake’ | |
| <p> | 0070 | /p/ | expected | penao ‘spirit’, api ‘fire’ | |
| <r> | 0072 | /ɾ/ | expected | rano ‘pool’, kara ‘heat’ | |
| <s> | 0073 | /s/ | expected | sala ‘path’, aso ‘one’ | |
| <t> | 0074 | /t̪/ | expected | taba ‘fat (n.)’, ate ‘liver’ | |
| <u> | 0075 | /u/ | expected | ulu ‘head’, posu ‘bile’ | |
| <w> | 0077 | /β/ | expected | wula ‘moon; month’, awu ‘dust, ash’ | Edwards chose the voiced bilabial {em:approximant} as the phoneme rather than the voiced bilabial fricative. |
| <y> | 0079 | /j/ | rare | yuta ‘million’, Yeni (a woman’s name) | Word-initial in certain borrowed words, particularly in certain first names of people |