Acehnese phonology
Language phonology
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Consonants
The table below shows the Acehnese consonant phonemes and the range of their realizations, non-standard phonemes are shown in brackets.[2][3]
- In the northern dialects of Aceh (North Acehnese, Greater Acehnese), the nasals /m/, /n/, /ɲ/, /ŋ/ are realized as post-oralized nasals (also called "funny nasals") before oral vowels and consonants.[4][5] They are distinct from the nasal–plosive sequences /mb/, /nd/, /ɲɟ/, /ŋɡ/, e.g. in [banᵈa] 'port' vs [mandum] 'all'.[6] Outside of the northern dialects, post-oralized nasals are absent, as observed in the West Acehnese dialects, where they are treated as nasal–plosive sequences, compare North Acehnese nggang, 'hornbill' [ŋᶢaŋ] with West Acehnese eunggang [ɯŋ.ɡaŋ] or nggang [ŋ.ɡaŋ].[7]
- The stop /t/ is realised as a postalveolar stop [t̠].[8][9] Budiman Sulaiman observed /d/ as postalveolar as well.[9]
- The phoneme /f/ is not native in Acehnese and is borrowed from Arabic. While Asyik describes the /f/ phoneme as a labio-dental,[8] Zulfadli argues that there is no /f/ in Acehnese, stating instead that /f/ and /v/ from loanwords are nativised into /p/, Durie also does not include /f/ as an Acehnese phoneme.[11]
- In most dialects of Acehnese, the fricative /s/ is pronounced as a voiceless denti-alveolar sibilant [s̻̪]. As described by Durie, the phoneme /s/ is realised as "a laminal alveo-dental fricative with a wide channel area".[12] Snouck Hurgronje used the grapheme ⟨tʰ⟩ to represent the phoneme /s/ in his orthography of Acehnese due to its similarity to English's [θ].[13][14]. The fricative has also been described as a plain voiceless dental sibilant /θ/.[15]
- The phoneme /ʃ/ only natively occurs in onomatopoeias, such as husy, 'to shoo an animal away' /huʃ/,[8] or as realisations of /c/ and /cʰ/,[16] such as syeuruga, 'heaven' /ʃɯruɡa/ compared to standard ceuruga /cɯruɡa/.[17] Non-native /ʃ/ mostly comes from Arabic loans and is often nativised as /c/, /cʰ/, or /s/.[16]
Consonant examples
The following table shows typical examples of the occurrence of the above consonant phonemes in words, using minimal pairs where possible.
| Fortis | Lenis | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| /p/ | peuet | four | /b/ | beuet | to read |
| /t/ | teuka | to arrive | /d/ | deuka | to be lucky |
| /c/ | cap | stamp | /ɟ/ | jap | tight, closely |
| /k/ | kôt | coat | /ɡ/ | gôt | to pull |
| /s/ | sue | waste | |||
| /h/ | hue | to pull | |||
| /ʔ/ | ue | to have a blockage in the throat |
|||
| /m/ | mom | breast | |||
| /n/ | nom | to dive | |||
| /ɲ/ | nyum | feelings | |||
| /ŋ/ | ngom | reed | |||
| /l/ | lèh | suffix to indicate a polite request | |||
| /r/ | rèe | a roaring sound | |||
| /w/ | wèe | Arabic letter waw | |||
| /j/ | yèe | shark | |||
Clusters
Acehnese has three consonant glides: /h/, /r/, and /l/.[18]
Vowels
Native-speaking linguists divide vowels in Acehnese into several categories: oral monophthongs, oral diphthongs (which are further divided into the ones ending with /ə/ and with /i/), nasal monophthongs, and nasal diphthongs.[22]
Oral vowels
Oral monophthong vowels in Acehnese are shown in the table below.[23]
Oral diphthong vowels ending with /ə/ are shown in the table below.[24]
| Front | Central | Back |
|---|---|---|
| /iə/ | /ɯə/ | /uə/ |
| /ɛə/ | /ʌə/ | /ɔə/ |
Oral diphthong vowels ending with /i/ are shown in the table below.[25]
| Central | Back |
|---|---|
| /ui/ | |
| /əi/ | /oi/ |
| /ʌi/ | /ɔi/ |
| /ai/ |
Nasal vowels
Nasal monophthong vowels in Acehnese are shown in the table below.[26]
Orthography
The orthography of Achenese features 31 letters: the 26 letters of the basic Latin alphabet, è, é, ë, ô, and ö.
| Grapheme | Phoneme (IPA) |
Open syllable | Closed syllable |
|---|---|---|---|
| a | /a/ | ba /ba/ ‘carry’ | bak /baʔ/ ‘at, tree’ |
| e | /ə/ | le /lə/ ‘many’ | let /lət/ ‘pull out’ |
| é | /e/ | baté /bate/ ‘cup, betel tray’ | baték /bateʔ/ ‘batik’ |
| è | /ɛ/ | bèe /bɛə/ ‘smell’ | bèk /bɛʔ/ ‘prohibitive "don't" (e.g. bèk neupajôh boh gantang teucrôh lôn 'don't you eat my fries')' |
| eu | /ɯ/ | keu /kɯ/ ‘for’ | keuh /kɯh/ ‘so (e.g. nyan keuh), pronominal affix for second person (e.g. droe-keuh)’ |
| i | /i/ | di /di/ 'in, from' | dit /dit/ 'few, small amount' |
| o | /ɔ/ | yo /jɔ/ ‘afraid’ | yok /jɔʔ/ ‘shake’ |
| ô | /o/ | rô /ro/ ‘spill’ | rôh /roh/ ‘enter’ |
| ö | /ʌ/ | pö /pʌ/ ‘fly’ | pöt /pʌt/ ‘pluck, pick’ |
| u | /u/ | su /su/ ‘sound, voice’ | cut /cut/ ‘small’ |