Enggano language
| Enggano | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Indonesia |
| Region | Enggano Island, off Sumatra |
|
Native speakers
|
700 (2011) |
|
Austronesian
|
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | engg1245 |
Enggano Island, in red
|
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The Enggano language, or Engganese, is the poorly known language of Enggano Island off the southwestern coast of Sumatra. It appears to be an Austronesian language, though much of the basic vocabulary cannot be connected to other Austronesian languages. When first contacted by Europeans, the Enggano people had more in common culturally with the Nicobar Islands than with Austronesian Sumatra; however, there are no apparent linguistic connections with Nicobarese or other Austroasiatic languages.
Enggano has historically undergone nasal harmony in its identifiable Austronesian vocabulary, where all stop consonants and vowels in a word became nasal after a nasal vowel, and oral after an oral vowel, so that there is no longer a phonemic distinction between them. For example, *eũ’ada’a became eũ’ãnã’ã, while nasal consonants are no longer found in ’ub 'house' or ’a-rib 'five' (cf. Malay rumah, lima). Enggano is the only western Austronesian language in which *t shifted to /k/, an unusual change that occurred independently several times in Oceanic after *k shifted to glottal stop.
The only major linguistic treatment of Enggano was conducted by Hans Kähler in 1937; he published a grammar (1940), texts, and a dictionary (1987). However, phonology is limited to a simple inventory and a short paragraph of basic features; the grammar and dictionary disagree with each other, the dictionary is not consistent, some words are not legible, and doubts have been raised about the accuracy of the transcriptions. Nothofer (1992) discusses loanwords and also lists phonemes. Yoder (2011) is a thesis on Enggano vowels, with some comments on consonants; it will be followed here.
Stress was once reported to be penultimate but is now on the final syllable. Alternating syllables preceding it have secondary stress.
Yoder and Nothofer report seven oral and seven nasal vowels:
Diphthongs are /ai, aɨ, au, ei, ɘi, oi/.
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