Indonesian tribe picks Korean alphabet

[Karavinka]

Just an additional note here: I'm brushing up Malay/Indonesian grammar again, just to have some sort of reference for comparison or ideas of what things might be like in Cia-Cia. I noticed several function words that are exactly the same in both languages, due to either imperfections in the Cia-Cia text, clear cognacy or borrowing, whatever the case might be.

For example, Indonesian has the pronominal/possessive enclitic -nya, used for both 3sg and 3pl. Assuming this is the same as the Cia-Cia no, I might have been looking for wrong places when I was searching for distinct 3pl ending. On the other hand, since Indonesian doesn't seem to have distinct 2pl and uses "anda sekalian" (or sth similar) while Cia-Cia apparently does with "isimiu", the comparison with Indonesian alone might not be good enough.

So, in case anyone following this thread is well-versed in Austronesian languages, your comments would be very appreciated.

[Karavinka]

Well, this is the third weekly report. Now I have a fairly decent comprehension of Cia-Cia as it is presented to me, and I can figure out what the word is based on the translation, or sometimes fix the translation to make it closer to the Cia-Cia text. So, I count that as a progress..in a sense, I became more "familiar" with Cia-Cia over two weeks. Given that there's only 60 or so pages of corpus, much of it in pictures or blanks, this probably isn't something terribly special.

Most imperatives have -에 (-e) attached to the verb root, such as 부리에(burie) "write!", but I cannot generalize this as an imperative marker. Many other finitie verb forms seem to have this, and this might well be a 2sg personal ending. Where and why this particular ending/suffix appears is one of the biggest puzzle to me at the moment.

Besides, a lot of Cia-Cia verb forms has affixes that resemble possessive enclitics, such as -노(-no) or -ㄴ또(-nto), and I think the language has prefixes for person.

(note: I'm going to use ㅘ /wa/ instead of that weird /v/ sign from now on, to make it easier to type. The actual sound is neither /v/ nor /w/ as we know in English, it's like a slight v sound made with round lips.)

#1. 하왈리 이아 노떼를람받 셀라마 똘로뿔루 마니우. (54)
Havali ia noterlambat selama tolopulu maniu.
But he was late for 30 minutes.

#2. 모아빠 붕아 노베르따리마 까시 마이 아디? (42)
Moapa Bunga nobertarima kasi mai Adi?
Why did Bunga thank Adi?

#3. 뿌라에 노베르잔지아소 붕아 마이 아디? (42)
Purae noberjanjiaso Bunga mai Adi?
What did Bunga promise to Adi?

#4. 인다우 베르잔지 아밈발리 사팡깜. (42)
Indau berjanji amimbali sapangkam.
I promise to be your friend.

If I'm allowed to make a wild assumption that Cia-Cia verbs do not conjugate in tense, and the -ter- and -ber- are analogous with Indonesian, then I can make a couple of guesses here.

First, indirect objects "Adi" in #2 and #3 seem to take the preposition "mai", which is used elsewhere as preposition "with" or "and."

The word "janji" is a promise, cognate with the Indonesian word. ber-janji in #4 makes sense in Indonesian as well, but #2 and #3 have additional suffixes no-. Since #4 is 1sg while #2 and #3 are 3sg, this no- can be taken as a personal ending? Although I'm not 100% confident, Cia-Cia is likely to have personal endings on the verbs. (Regarding -aso, I think it might (and I'm really not sure but) be something abour reciprocity.)

Here is another minimal pair I found:

#5 모이아 찌아 나문다 나마아 까마아 니파디노. (50)
Moia cia namunda namaa kamaa nipadino.
They never eat what they don't like.

#6 세힝가 이끼따 하루스 따마아 마짬마짬 까마아 티아아소 께세하딴또. (50)
Sehinga ikita harus tamaa macammacam kamaa tiaaso kesehatanto.
So we need to eat various foods for our health.

3pl and 2pl incl. seem to have a different prefix for each person as well. But the exact forms aren't so clear as of now, particularly 2pl ta- seems to alternate with to-.

#7 인다우 삐끼리에 이끼따 하루스 또떼빠띠에 잔진또. (54)
Indau pikirie ikita harus totepatie janjinto.
I think we need to keep our promises.

#8 이 깔라시우, 이사미 또뿌뚜사아소 따무나 바랑 께낭께낭안 이 을랄로노 꼬딱. (72)
I kalasiu, isami toputusaaso tamuna barang kenangkenangan i lalono kotak.
In my class, we decided to put our precious objects in a box.

#6 and #7 almost have the same structure, "ikita" (2pl incl. independent personal pronoun), followed by "harus" (should/must, same as in Indonesian) and the verb with prefix ta- or to-, followed by the direct object. #8 has a different pronoun, "isami" (2pl excl) but this one seems to share the same ending with 2pl incl. It is possible that the alternation between ta- and to- is phonologically conditioned, and the real prefix should rather be tV-, and these endings are shared by both 2pl persons, even though the possessive enclitics are distinct between 2pl incl. and excl.

Some questions:
* Can some persons be expressed with prefixes, while others with suffixes?
* Can I generalize the Indonesian rules for -ber-, -ter- or -men- to Cia-Cia?
* What exactly does -aso ending do? Something like reciprocity or community?

[TeneReef]

They should have picked the Tamil script instead.

[kroen]

I wish Japanese dropped Kanji and replace the Kana with Hangul. Or even keep Kanji, but still use Hangul instead of Kana. Mixed script is sexy.

[IMABI]

I wish Japanese dropped Kanji and replace the Kana with Hangul. Or even keep Kanji, but still use Hangul instead of Kana. Mixed script is sexy.

That's a rather stupid idea. For one, Hangul has some phonemes that are not present at all in Japanese. How would we Japanese speakers differentiate between initial k and g then? Kana were made for the Japanese language. The mixed script in Japanese allows speakers to easily figure out the etymology of words. The only thing that Japanese script may need reform is is variant spellings.

[Remis]

How would we Japanese speakers differentiate between initial k and g then?

......半濁点？
Seriously though, it is a strange idea (though I do think hangul could be modified enough to be usable for Japanese, especially considering the same thing has already been done with kana. Not to mention that Korean/hangul distinguishes between aspirated and unaspirated plosives, which Japanese/kana doesn't). And besides, kana + kanji is mixed script already, isn't it? Not to mention all the rōmaji for numerals and brands and such.

[Karavinka]

How would we Japanese speakers differentiate between initial k and g then?

......半濁点？

You're close! The 1912 orthography developed by the Japanese colonial government used 濁点 with Hangul. This got replaced by the 1930 orthography, which uses extra signs ᅁ, ᅅ, ᅂ, ᅄ for ga / za / da / ba series. Apparently the Japanese didn't find a good corresponding symbol for these sounds in Hangul and they really don't have close equivalents in Korean phonology.

But this orthography was used for Korean, not Japanese, and the Japanese-specific rules I described was for writing Japanese words in Korean texts, or in books used to teach Japanese.

But this discussion is getting out of topic. Although I think Cia-Cia is cool in itself, and it's making me more interested in Austronesian languages in general, I don't like the idea behind Hangulizing this language and I certainly don't want to see another half-baked Hangulization, certainly not with the languages when there is already available Roman alphabet alternative.

Maybe I should have mentioned this before, there are many, many, many ultra-nationalistic Hangul supremacists in Korea, and they attempted to do the same thing with other minority languages before, including Lahu (a Sino-Tibetan language in Southeast Asia) and Tetum (official language of East Timor). Of course neither found any acceptance.

This kind of "Oh, you don't have a writing system? Here, take ours, this is so much better than ANYTHING ELSE IN THE WORLD!" approach is not only ultranationalistic and supremacist, but also patronizing and honestly, if I were a Lahu, Tetum, Cia-Cia or Aymara speaker, I would have been insulted.

[IMABI]

Don't get me wrong. I really like Korean and Hangul, but I would never ever want to use Hangul to write Japanese.

Now, I do agree. This is off-topic, so Karavinka continue on with the discussion about Cia-Cia.

[arpee]

Doesn't Balinese use a diffirent script also?

They added an empty syllable for the words with initial "l"... like "lima" became "을리마." At least from a Korean perspective, the system is very readable except a few weird features like the treatment of L. Syllable-final R became a problem too, so they just use ㅡ for "no vowel": verbal prefix like per- is transcribed as "뻬르-".

Oh common, isn't this proof that The Korean Alphabet is not the best option for this language? The Latin Alphabet would have been better, no adding empty syllables and no adding "dashes" to indicate no vowels, just use the Latin alphabet in a phonetic way.

[Karavinka]

Doesn't Balinese use a diffirent script also?

They added an empty syllable for the words with initial "l"... like "lima" became "을리마." At least from a Korean perspective, the system is very readable except a few weird features like the treatment of L. Syllable-final R became a problem too, so they just use ㅡ for "no vowel": verbal prefix like per- is transcribed as "뻬르-".

Oh common, isn't this proof that The Korean Alphabet is not the best option for this language? The Latin Alphabet would have been better, no adding empty syllables and no adding "dashes" to indicate no vowels, just use the Latin alphabet in a phonetic way.

Absolutely agreed. I don't think I was defending hangul in any way. It sucks. I was just explaining how it worked.

[ling]

Oh come on, isn't this proof that The Korean Alphabet is not the best option for this language? The Latin Alphabet would have been better, no adding empty syllables and no adding "dashes" to indicate no vowels, just use the Latin alphabet in a phonetic way.

Agreed.

Though they could have modified it, such as using ᄅ for R, and a modified version of it (doubled, perhaps) for L, and distancing themselves from Korean spelling habits by, say, spelling "harus" as 하룻.

[モモンガ]

I want this book
아쿠 부쿠 이투 마우 멤바짜.[*]





* my attempt at writing Indonesian in 한글.

[ling]

사이아 삐낄 므눌릿 바하사 인도네시아 등안 알파벹 꼬레아 아달랗 보돟

Saya pikir menulis Bahasa Indonesia dengan alfabet Korea adalah bodoh.

[Karavinka]

I've been busy with yet another intercontinental moving.. I'm back in Canada, and I'll see if I can make some more time for this but I'm not so sure atm.

[Karavinka]

I remembered that this thread existed. Mods, can you move this to the AAP forum?


EDIT: Well, that was quick!

I thought this fiasco was completely dead, and I haven't heard from the Korean side. However, some local efforts still seem to be ... continuing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSgj9UvaqO4

This is a clip from a fishing program that was taken near the island of Buton in 2018. The man who explains is Abidin, one of the credited authors of the textbook, and the clip shows another teacher who's using the same textbook. From the narrations, it seems the shift has focused more to the teaching of the Korean language at the high school level, and the language the kids sing is Korean. The two men seem not to have been aware of this, and they had no idea what ㅸ (/w/) was, since the letter is obsolete in Modern Korean.

Personally, I am actually shocked to see this, like I thought this would have been long dead. Maybe the intention is to use Hangulized Cia-Cia as a bridge to teach Korean, and to make the most use out of the man Abidin who had, after all, a potentially useful thing to teach.

I don't really know Indonesian, but at 3:18 when the teacher says "one, two, three" the numbers are said in Indonesian, satu, dua, tiga. Cia-Cia would be dise, rua, tolu. My ears are terrible and I may mix up dua and rua, but at least I'm quite sure I heard satu, not dise. I'd like to know if this is one instance, or the teacher is actually teaching Hangulized Cia-Cia in Indonesian or in the actual Cia-Cia.

[vijayjohn]

That teacher was exclusively speaking Indonesian AFAICT. IIUC that's how education usually works everywhere in Indonesia; it's conducted in Indonesian. This contributes to language endangerment at least sometimes.