Indonesian tribe picks Korean alphabet

[null]

Indonesian tribe picks Korean alphabet as official writing system

SEOUL, Aug. 6 (Yonhap) -- A minority tribe in Indonesia has chosen to use Hangeul as its official writing system, in the first case of the Korean alphabet being used by a foreign society, a scholars' association here said Thursday.

The tribe in the city of Bauer and Bauer, located in Buton, Southeast Sulawesi, has chosen Hangeul as the official alphabet to transcribe its aboriginal language, according to the Hunminjeongeum Research Institute.

The Indonesian ethnic minority, with a population of 60,000, was on the verge of losing its native language as it lacked a proper writing system, the institute said.

The city of Bauer and Bauer began to teach students the Korean alphabet last month, with lessons based on textbooks created by the Korean institute.

Composed of writing, speaking and reading sections, all texts in the book -- explaining the tribe's history, language and culture -- are written in the Korean script. The book also includes a Korean fairy tale.

The city plans to set up a Korean center next month and to work on spreading the Korean alphabet to other regions by training Korean language teachers.

Linguists here expressed hope that the case will become a stepping stone to spreading and promoting the Korean alphabet globally. The Hunminjeongeum Research Institute has been trying for several years to spread the Korean alphabet to minority tribes across Asia who do not have their own writing system.

"It will be a meaningful case in history if the Indonesian tribe manages to keep its aboriginal language with the help of Hangeul," said Seoul National University professor and member of the institute Kim Joo-won. "In the long run, the spread of Hangeul will also help enhance Korea's economy as it will activate exchanges with societies that use the language."

Prof. Lee Ho-young, who helped create the Korean textbook for the Indonesian tribe, said it was a "historical case" for the Korean alphabet to be used in preserving the traditional language of a foreign society.

"I hope the case will serve as a meaningful opportunity to show off the excellence of Hangeul outside of the country," he said.

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/nationa ... 0315F.HTML

What do you think?

[Æxylis]

Hrm... of course, although hangeul is phonetic, I wonder what they'd do about adding all of the different vowels and consonants used in other languages... Like with languages like English or Arabic, I can't imagine how many new symbols would have to be introduced for all the new consonants and vowels...

[Kasuya]

I think it's great. Is that the first Indonesian language to use a script other than the Latin one?

[null]

the textbook

[Sean of the Dead]

Wow this is so awesome!

[Formiko]

Wow this is so awesome!

The language is called Cia-Cia. It was originally written in Jawi, which was used for Malay. In the Hangull adaptation, ㅸ was resurrected for /v/.

아디 세링 빨리 노논또 뗄레ᄫᅵ시. 아마노 노뽀옴바에 이아 나누몬또 뗄레ᄫᅵ시 꼴리에 노몰렝오.
adi sering pali nononto televisi. amano nopo'ombae ia nanumonto televisi kolie nomolengo.

Sound recordings:
http://globalrecordings.net/language/8966

Javanese and Balinese are scripts that were used in Indonesia. Both Javanese and Balinese are my favorite scripts.

[Æxylis]

The language is called Cia-Cia.

How is that language pronounced, like chacha? /tSa: tSa:/

[Formiko]

The language is called Cia-Cia.

How is that language pronounced, like chacha? /tSa: tSa:/

Like "cheeya cheeya"

[Mulder-21]

I think it's great. Is that the first Indonesian language to use a script other than the Latin one?

Malay/Indonesian and Java have both used Jawi, which is the Malay Arabic alphabet. But if it's used currently, I can't say.

[0stsee]

The language is called Cia-Cia. It was originally written in Jawi, which was used for Malay. In the Hangull adaptation, ㅸ was resurrected for /v/.

아디 세링 빨리 노논또 뗄레ᄫᅵ시. 아마노 노뽀옴바에 이아 나누몬또 뗄레ᄫᅵ시 꼴리에 노몰렝오.
adi sering pali nononto televisi. amano nopo'ombae ia nanumonto televisi kolie nomolengo.

Javanese and Balinese are scripts that were used in Indonesia. Both Javanese and Balinese are my favorite scripts.

Interesting. The first sentence probably means "Adi often watches TV".
In Indonesian it would be "Adi sering kali (me)nonton televisi". Yet as for the second sentence, I don't even have an idea what it may mean.

As far as I can remember Batak (a tribe from North Sumatra) also used to have its own script.

[Karavinka]

I just dropped by a bookstore in Seoul this evening and I found the textbook, "바하사 찌아찌아 1" (Bahasa Cia-Cia 1). The text I found was the South Korean edition, for local readership who might be curious about this textbook and the language. It has a little less than 130 pages, with Hangulized Cia-Cia on the left side and the exact duplicate (including pictures) with Korean translation on the right. It was a little bit disappointing because that would mean the original Cia-Cia textbook only had about 60 pages.

Based on the South Korean edition, I could see right away that this book was not meant to teach the language in the first place, rather it was intended for the native-speaking children to acquire the literacy in Cia-Cia in Hangul. It begins really simple in the first few pages, but it does contain stories that are a few pages long in the end. The reading sections contain some Cia-Cia contents, but there's also a Korean story (I smell ultranationalism...) and stories adapted from Aesop.

Although I have some reservations about the whole enterprise, I think I'm still going to try reading the book and see how much Cia-Cia I could hack out of...after all, it's a bilingual text for a fairly obscure indigenous language.

PS. The hangulization project for Aymara is ongoing, just in case you're curious where this is going to... I have an insider report about this.

PS2. The Cia-Cia hangulization project almost came to a standstill, and it's likely that this will fail. Given the way things are now, it's highly unlikely that there will be a sequel to this textbook, and the textbook will be at best an item of curiosity.

[Meera]

I think it's great. Is that the first Indonesian language to use a script other than the Latin one?

Malay/Indonesian and Java have both used Jawi, which is the Malay Arabic alphabet. But if it's used currently, I can't say.

Doesn't Balinese use a diffirent script also?

[ling]

I notice they use ᄅ for "r" and represent an "l" by ending one syllable with ᄅ and beginning the next with ᄅ.

But how about words that begin with "r" vs. ones that begin with "l"?

If the phonology (especially syllable structure) of the language is similar to Korean, I can see it working out. But if not, I see problems.

[Karavinka]

Doesn't Balinese use a diffirent script also?

Actually, Javanese and Balinese had a Brahmic script alongside the Arabic/Jawi. Javanese and Balinese scripts are pretty much the same, and one could say that one is the typographical variant of another.

I notice they use ᄅ for "r" and represent an "l" by ending one syllable with ᄅ and beginning the next with ᄅ.

But how about words that begin with "r" vs. ones that begin with "l"?

If the phonology (especially syllable structure) of the language is similar to Korean, I can see it working out. But if not, I see problems.

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-".

Well, I've spent something like five hours reading this book since I got home... I've read every page of it, matching the Cia-Cia on the left-hand side with the translation on the right-hand side. I'm getting some general ideas about the structure of this language, but I'll save it for the next time (if anyone is interested, of course).

[ILuvEire]

Karavinka, you gotta tell us what you've learned about Cia-Cia, and I'm really interested in the hangulization of Aymara, what's that all about?
Karavinka, du musst uns sagen, was du über Cia-Cia lernen hast! Ich interessiere mich auch für die Hangulisierung Aymaras, was ist damit los?

Apparently there're some issues between the Bau-Bau city and the Hunminjeongeum Society. I'm going to go ahead and wager that this will fail :
Es gibt offensichtlich einige Probleme zwischen der Bau-Baustadt und der Hunminjeongeum Gesellschaft. Ich wette gegen die Entwicklung der Hangulisierung :
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/htm ... 01151.html

At the time, the Seoul Metropolitan Government expressed willingness to cooperate on urban development projects such as a cultural center in Bau-Bau, but the plan was aborted due to budget problems. But the city of Bau-Bau has since then thought of Seoul, rather than the Hunminjeongeum Society, as its partner because it expected to get more support that way. It now insists on teachers sent by the Seoul Metropolitan Government.

[Karavinka]

The Hunminjeongeum Institute made impossible promises including economic supports and establishment of cultural center in Bau-Bau. They tossed the responsibility to Seoul Metropolitan Government.

The city of Bau-Bau wasn't interested in Hangul per se, their main motivation was to draw economic support from South Korea, using Hangul as a medium for it. (Because, if they really want to write down their language, they could always use Roman).

And the Seoul Metropolitan Government welcomed photo shootings and things, but actual economic aid was too much of an expense, and openly supporting Hangul usage could cause diplomatic problems with the central government in Indonesia, whose constitution states all languages are written in Roman alphabet.

So, I don't know the current situation right now, but as of late 2011, only three elementary schools offered Hangulized Cia-Cia and there was no reinforcement of teacher staff. Both the Cia-Cia teacher called Abidin and the Hunminjeongeum Institute confounded the teaching of Korean alphabet and Korean language itself, and they offered the Korean language, not just the alphabet, at the highschool level which became another issue. The projected second volume of the elementary school textbook, 바하사 찌아찌아 2 (Bahasa Cia-Cia 2) was supposed to be ready by summer 2010 but it's fairly unlikely that it will see the light of the day.

Now, as to the textbook itself...

The textbook was criticized in various ways. Like I mentioned above, the story includes a Korean folk tale and stories from Aesop. While the half of the reading passages deal with Cia-Cia and Indonesian contents, the inclusion of the Korean story is questionable in its intention, and it seems to me that they wanted to promote Korean language and culture alongside the introduction of the alphabet.

It received criticism that the book failed to show the register variations in Cia-Cia, and as far as I could see, the textbook is written in a single register, which I assume to be colloquial/low. While Indonesian doesn't have a stark variation in registers, other Indonesian languages like Javanese and Balinese do, often employing entirely different words and grammatical particles depending on the leve lof politesse. Nothing of that in the textbook.

I noticed a few instances of possible Indonesianisms. On one page you find "운뚝(untuk)" used on the letter-writing page as "운뚝 아디(untuk Adi)", "to/for Adi." This was the only occurence of "운뚝", and in all other instances the corresponding preposition was "티아아소(tia'aso)." I could recognize "운뚝" as a clear sign of Indonesianism. Another that I noticed was the word for "writer", "뻬눌리스(penulis)." The Cia-Cia root for "to write" is "부리(buri)." Whether "뻬눌리스" is an acceptable loanword or not is unknown to me.

My biggest problem is that the textbook has, surprisingly, no greeting or basic conversations. Of course, this book is meant for the native-speaking elementary children, but teaching basic greeting/self-introduction formula could have been expected. Later I learned that such things were intended for the projected second volume which I'd love to see, but I'm doubtful if I ever will.

The Korean translations are not always close to the Cia-Cia original. Sometimes a whole sentence is missing out, and at times it renders direct speech in Cia-Cia as indirect speech in Korean. Korean language's pro-drop tendency obfuscated personal pronouns in Cia-Cia texts, but I think I figured out most of the pronouns.

So, what have I learned? I spent close to 8 hours straight with the textbook on day 1, and I think I figured out the following:

1. Personal pronouns and pronominal endings attached to the nouns.
2. A few, but not all interrogatives. I could locate "what", "why" and "who", but not "when" and "where." I'm suspecting I have the "how", but I'm not confident about it yet. I have the word "when" as it's used as a conjunction, but not as an interrogative.
3. Four classifiers so far.
4. Negation.
5. And about a couple of dozen other function words, like prepositions, conjunctions, modals etc.

What I do not know is:
1. The function of various verbal prefixes/suffixes.
2. Subordination and relative pronouns.
3. Pretty much everything you could ask about verbs, like tense/aspect/mood/etc if they exist.
4. Greeting and basic conversation formulae.

After spending some time, I tried to find if there's any previously published description. I could find one citation in English and another in Indonesian, but I couldn't find either available online. I think I'm going to do my best to sort out the verb affixation patterns before sharing anything. I'm not 100% confident of what I did seem to figure out yet.

For example, I'm 99% confident that "인다우(indau)" is the independent 1sg pronoun because it appears so many times it's beyond question. The 1sg possessive suffix is -"우(-u)" which also appears often enough in clear contexts. But I'm not so confident about 2pl and 1pl exclusive. I think 1pl exclusive might be "이사미(isami)" with the possessive suffix -"마미(-mami)" but so far I could only find one occurence of this, while 1pl inclusive "아끼따(akita)" with the suffix -"또(-to)" has been found enough times.

I bought the book initially out of curiosity, but now I'm seeing it as a challenge if I could break the code, so to speak. I'm going to start typing up the text in order to facilitate searching different forms, particularly as I start tackling verbs. If anyone comes across any publication on it, it will be highly appreciated.

[ILuvEire]

I find this all really interesting. You've gotta keep us up to date with what you discover from the book. It really does seem like you're breaking a code!

[bluejay390]

This is very interesting. I didn't know all that was going on between Seoul Metropolitan Government, Bau-Bau and the Indonesian government. Thanks for sharing about the book and what you were able to learn from it. Good luck with breaking the code. XD And I agree with ILuvEire that you have to keep us up to date with the book!

[IMABI]

So, Karavinka, are the pronunciation changes used in Korean adapted into Cia-Cia? So, if a word ends in a consonant like an s in Cia-Cia, would it be written with just ㅅ?

[Karavinka]

Well, thanks everyone, and to answer IMABI's question here, I must say I'm clueless about how Cia-Cia actually sounds (though I tried to listen to a missionary recording in the language for a few hours, didn't get much out of it).

But if you mean the morphophonetic changes in Korean (which is morpheme-based, not exactly sound) then I can probably say "no." Cia-Cia's syllable-final consonants are limited to: -ㄱ(k), -ㅁ(m), -ㄷ(d/t?), -ㅇ(ng), -(ㄹ)l, -(ㄴ)n. Among them, ㄹ usually appears between syllables and it is spelled with double ㄹ, and I can't know if it really sounds like two L's or it is just orthographic matter, trying to distinguish it from single ㄹ which is used to spell "R." When final -s does occur, it gets "ㅡ" below it, like 하루스(harus), and "ㅡ" has no sound, functioning only as a placeholder. This actually seems very Korean-centric because there's no reason why it couldn't be spelled "하룻" and make a rule that final -ㅅ in Cia-Cia is pronounced -s. I don't like it.

Well, anyways, I haven't made that much progress over the weak thanks to the verbs. Well, I guess I could report something every week or so, just the stuff that I feel comfortable about.

INDEPENDENT PERSONAL PRONOUNS.

1SG: 인다우(indau)

인다우 바하기아. (34)
indau bahagia.
I'm content.

I'm 99% certain about "indau." It's one of the first words I learned. The words in Cia-Cia seem almost always take a possessive ending when the referred object belongs to someone, and in 1sg this is -우(-u).

2SG: 이소오(iso'o)

이소오 살라 (60)
Iso'o sala.
You're wrong.

I'm also very confident about this word as well, though it's not as frequently used. It's usually omitted in imperatives, but it's used in one case:

이소오 뽀가우아소 비나땅 가우 니탐바임 마이 알라산 멩에나이 비나땅 이아. (76)
iso'o pogaauaso binatang gau nidtambaim mai alasan mengenai binatang ia.
Choose an animal and talk about the reason for it.

I can't parse this sentence completely, and the Korean translates it as an imperative, but it could very well be something like future. I don't know. Most imperatives in the book end with -에(-e) so this single sentence cannot be an imperative.

3SG: I DON'T KNOW

Something like Indonesian "dia" must exist in Cia-Cia as well, but I'm not terribly sure. Almost all sentences contain explicit subjects in this book. But there's this word, "이아(ia)" which mystifies me somewhat; I initially thought it was the 3sg personal pronoun, but I think it might as well be a demonstrative.

1PL EXCL: 이사미(isami)

This "we" excludes the listener, and since this is common across Austronesian languages, it could be expected to exist in Cia-Cia as well.

자디 이사미 껠린찌 따빠깔루아라에 하떼마미 (96)
jadi isami kelinci tapakaluara'e hatemami
since we rabbits ... our livers.

This is a part of a direct speech where the speaker is the only rabbit in the scene, talking to other non-rabbit creatures. However, the Korean translates this as 1sg, "I take my liver out, wash it clean, keep it under a large rock."

From what I can count, "이사미" appears only twice in the book. In another scene:

이 깔라시우, 이사미 또뿌뚜사아소 따무나 바랑 께낭께낭안 이 을랄로노 꼬딱.
i kalasiu, isami toputusa'aso tamuna baranng kenangkenangan i lalono kotak.
"my class decided to keep precious objects in a box together." (from Korean)

The speaker is talking about what's going on in her class, and in this context, even if the readers are prompted to do the same in their classes, still it doesn't mean the readers join the speaker. I concluded "이사미" must be 1pl excl based on the -마미 in "하떼마미" in the first example, which was the only way to make sense of it. (more on that below)

1PL INCL: 이끼따(ikita)

인다우 삐끼리에 이끼따 하루스 또떼빠띠에 잔진또. (54)
indau pikirie ikita harus totepatie janjinto.
I think we should keep our promises.

Unlike 이사미, this doesn't only imply that the speakers need to keep promises..this is a general moral rule about everyone. Most "we" in the book use "이끼따", so I'm pretty confident about this one.

2PL: 이시미우(isimiu)

이시미우 가꼬니에 모아빠 마누시아 노빠께 까오스까끼 마이 시빠뚜? (60)
isimi'u gakonie moapa manusia nopake kaoskaki mai sipatu?
Do you know why people wear shoes and socks?

이시미우 후멘데노 삠발리 하께 아따ㅸㅏ 인다우 수맘뿌노 삠발리 우까. (120)
isimiu humendeno pimbali hake atawa indau sumampuno pimbali uka.
You (pl) come out, or should I go out?

This is very rare, only two occurences as well. But the contexts made it pretty clear. Both sentences are from direct speeches, where the speakers talk to mutiple listeners.

3PL: 모이아(moia)

모이아 찌아 나문다 나마아 까마아 니파디노. (50)
moia cia namunda namaa kamaa nipadino.
They never eat the food they don't like.

모이아 뽀땅꾸 마이 미아노 ㅸㅗㄹ리오, 노떼르께날 우까 세바가이 미아노 부똔. (84)
moia potangku mai miano wolio, noterkenal uka sebagai miano buton.
They're close to Wolio people, and also called Butonese.

It's not the most commonly used pronoun since most sentences in the book have clear subjects. But this is pretty clear to me.


PRONOMINAL ENDINGS

Most Cia-Cia words seem to have an ending attached to them if they are possessed. My primary source to get this was the word "하떼(hate)" which means "liver" because it plays a central role in one of the stories and gets referred/repeated a lot.

하떼우 : hate-u : my liver (1sg)
하뗌 : hate-m : your liver (2sg)
하떼노 : hate-no : its liver (3sg)
하떼마미 : hate-mami : our livers (1pl excl)

another useful word was 잔지janji, "promise." The word was also used as a title, so we actually have an attested based form.

잔지 : janji : promise
잔지노 : janji-no : his promise (3sg)
잔진또 : janji-nto : our promise (1pl incl)

As I mentioned in the last post, I thought the 1pl ending was -또(-to), but now I think it's -ㄴ또(-nto).

With 2pl and 3pl, it's pretty hard to see. I do have something like this for 2pl:

삔동오 삼발리시미우! (60)
pindongo sambalisimiu!
Everyone, pay attention! (from Korean)

I can't really parse this sentence, but the -miu might be 2pl possessive, if sambalisi means "attention" or "hearing" or something like that. There are some resemblences between independent and possessive forms, like isami/-mami, ikita-/-nto, indau/-u etc, and the speaker of this direct speech is clearly addressing multiple listeners.

As for 3pl, I actually have no clue. Might be unmarked, might be that I haven't found it yet.

As an extra note, these possessive pronominal endings are very common in the textbook. Even in a genitive construction with a clear possessor, this is apparently necessary. "liver of a rabbit" is expressed as "하떼-노 껠린찌hate-no kelinci", literally something like "its liver of rabbit."




CLASSIFIERS.

As I said before, I think I caught 4 classifiers and I think that might be it with this book, though there might be one or two that I haven't noticed yet. The general rule is number + classifier + noun.

똥꾸 (tongku) : a thin, flat object?

아 똥꾸 수랃 : a tongku surat : one sheet/page of letter (44)
아 똥꾸 로오노 까테세 : a tongku ro'ono kadtese : a piece of banana leaf (116)

꿀루 (kulu) : for animals.

아 꿀루 스리갈라 : a kulu srigala : one wolf (104)
루아 꿀루 비나땅 : rua kulu binatang : two animals (70)
아 꿀루 껠린찌 : a kulu kelinci : a rabbit (96)

미아 (mia) : for people.

아 미아 사팡깜 : a mia sapangkam : one of your friends (44)
아 미아 모ㅸㅣ네 : a mia mowine : one wife (86)

깐돌레 (kandole ) : maybe a little piece of something?

아 깐돌레 따끼 : a kandole taki : a piece of excretion/fece/shit (68)

here it goes, you can now say something is a "piece of shit" in Cia-Cia, though I don't know if that would be idiomatic or not :p