Acehnese
Bahsa/Basa Acèh
Spoken in	Indonesia, Malaysia
Region	Aceh, Sumatra
Total speakers	3 million
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian (MP) Nuclear MP Malayo-Sumbawan Aceh-Chamic Acehnese
Language codes
ISO 639-1	None
ISO 639-2	ace
ISO 639-3	ace
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Acehnese (also Achinese, Achehnese) or Aceh (formerly Atjeh) is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken in Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia and Bota, Perak, Malaysia.

Contents 1 Classification and related languages 2 Phonology 3 Writing system 4 Dialects 5 References 6 Bibliography 7 External links

[edit] Classification and related languages

Acehnese belongs to the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family. Acehnese's closest relatives therefore include Chamic languages, Malay language family, Minangkabau language, Gayo language and Batak languages family.

[edit] Phonology

The following are phonemes of Acehnese.

Acehenese Vowels^[1]

	Front		Central		Back
	oral	nasal	oral	nasal	oral	nasal
Close	i	ĩ	ɨ	ɨ̃	u	ũ
Close-mid	e	ɛ̃	ə	ʌ̃	o	ɔ̃
Open-mid	ɛ		ʌ		ɔ
Open			a	ã

Vowels come mostly in oral/nasal pairs, though there are only three nasalized mid vowels while there are twice as many oral mid vowels. /ʌ/ is not strictly central, though it is shown here as such for aesthetic reasons. Similarly, /ɨ/ has also been represented as more back ([ɯ].^{[citation needed]} In addition to the monophthongal vowels above, Acehnese also possesses five oral diphthongs, each with a nasal counterpart:^[2]

• /iə ɨə uə ɛə ɔə/
• /ĩə ɨ̃ə ũə ɛ̃ə ɔ̃ə/

Acehenese Consonants^[3]

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Plosive	p b	t d	c ɟ	k g	ʔ
Fricative		s	ʃ		h
Approximant	w	l	j
Trill		r

/s/ is laminal alveodental. /ʃ/ is technically postalveolar but is in the palatal column for aesthetic reasons.

[edit] Writing system

Formerly, Acehnese language was written in Arabic script called Jawoë or Jawi in Malay language. The script is barely used nowadays. Now, Acehnese language is written in Latin script, with some additional letters. The additional letters are é, è, ë, ö and ô. ^[4]

[edit] Dialects

So far there has been no complete research about dialects of the Acehnese language. However, there are at least 10 dialects in the Acehnese language. The dialects are Pasè, Peusangan, Matang, Pidië, Buëng, Banda, Daya, Meulabôh, Seunagan and Tunong ^[5].

Among the 10 dialects, the most different dialects compared to other dialects are Buëng, Banda, and Daya dialects, especially Daya dialects. Perhaps, if a complete research was performed, they would be classed as a different language.

[edit] References

[edit] Bibliography

• Al-Harbi, Awwad; Al-Ahmadi, Ahmad (2003), "Acehnese coda condition: An optimality-theoretic account", Umm Al-Qura University Journal of Educational and Social Sciences and Humanities 15: 9–21, http://roa.rutgers.edu/files/594-0403/594-0403-AL-HARBI-0-0 
• Asyik, Abdul Gani (1982), "The agreement system in Acehnese", Mon-Khmer Studies 11: 1–33, http://www.lc.mahidol.ac.th/Documents/Publication/MKS/11/abdul1982agreement.pdf 

[edit] External links

• Ethnologue report for Acehnese
• Text sample in Unicode

This Austronesian languages-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e