Gorontalo language

Gorontaloan
Bahasa Hulontalo
Native to	Indonesia
Region	Gorontalo, Sulawesi
Native speakers	1 million (2000 census)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Philippine Gorontalo Gorontalic Gorontaloan
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-2	gor
ISO 639-3	gor
Glottolog	goro1259[2]

The Gorontaloan language (also called Hulontalo) is a language spoken in Gorontalo Province (Northern Sulawesi, Indonesia, southern coast) by the Gorontaloan people.^[3] Dialects of Gorontalo are East Gorontalo, Gorontalo Kota, Tilamuta, Suwawa, and West Gorontalo.

Phonology

	lab	alv.		pal.	vel.	glot.
nasal	m	n		ɲ	ŋ
plosive	p b	t d	d̠	c ɟ	k ɡ	ʔ
implosive	ɓ	ɗ
sonorant	w	l r		j		h

Consonant sequences include NC (homorganic nasal–plosive), where C may be /b d t d̠ ɟ ɡ k/. Elsewhere, /b d/ are relatively rare and only occur before high vowels. /d̠/, written ⟨ḓ⟩ in the literature, is a laminal post-alveoral coronal stop that is indeterminate as to voicing. The phonemic status of [ʔ] is unclear; if [VʔV] is interpreted as vowel sequences /VV/, then this contrasts with long vowels (where the two V's are the same) and vowel sequences separated by linking glides (where the two V's are different).

Sources

• Steinhauer, H. (1991). "Problems of Gorontalese phonology." In H. A. Poeze and P. Schoorl (Ed.), Excursies in Celebes: een bundel bijdragen bij het afscheid van J. Noorduyn als directeur-secretaris van het Konninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkendkunde, 325-338. KITLV Uitgeverij.

References

1. Gorontaloan at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Gorontalo". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
3. "The Gorontalo Language". The linguist list. Retrieved 3 September 2010.