Sasak language

The Sasak language (base Sasak; Balinese script: ᬪᬵᬲᬵᬲᬓ᭄ᬱᬓ᭄) is spoken by the Sasak ethnic group, which make up the majority of the population of Lombok, an island in the West Nusa Tenggara province of Indonesia. It is closely related to the Balinese and Sumbawa languages spoken on adjacent islands, and is part of the Austronesian language family. Sasak has no official status; the national language, Indonesian, is the official and literary language in areas where Sasak is spoken.

Some of its dialects, which correspond to regions of Lombok, have a low mutual intelligibility. Sasak has a system of speech levels in which different words are used depending on the social level of the addressee relative to the speaker, similar to neighbouring Javanese and Balinese.

Not widely read or written today, Sasak is used in traditional texts written on dried lontar leaves and read on ceremonial occasions. Traditionally, Sasak's writing system is nearly identical to Balinese script.

Speakers

Group of smiling children in front of a thatch-roofed house

Sasak village on Lombok

Sasak is spoken by the Sasak people on the island of Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, which is located between the island of Bali (on the west) and Sumbawa (on the east). Its speakers numbered about 2.7 million in 2010, roughly 85 percent of Lombok's population.Template:Sfn Sasak is used in families and villages, but has no formal status. The national language, Indonesian, is the language of education, government, literacy and inter-ethnic communication.Template:Sfn The Sasak are not the only ethnic group in Lombok; about 300,000 Balinese people live primarily in the western part of the island and near Mataram, the provincial capital of West Nusa Tenggara.Template:Sfn In urban areas with more ethnic diversity there is some language shift towards Indonesian, mainly in the forms of code-switching and mixing rather than an abandoning of Sasak.Template:Sfn

Classification and related languages

Chart of the relationship between Sasak and nearby languages

Sasak and related Malayo-Sumbawan languages, according to Adelaar (2005)

Austronesian linguist K. Alexander Adelaar classified Sasak as one of the Malayo-Sumbawan languages group (a group he first identified) of the western Malayo-Polynesian family in a 2005 paper.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Sasak's closest sister language is Sumbawa and, with Balinese, they form the Balinese-Sasak-Sumbawa (BSS) subgroup.Template:Sfn BSS, Malayic (which includes Malay, Indonesian and Minangkabau) and Chamic (which includes Acehnese) form one branch of the Malayo-Sumbawan group.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The two other branches are Sundanese and Madurese.Template:Sfn This classification puts Javanese, previously thought to belong to the same group, outside the Malayo-Sumbawan group in a different branch of the western Malayo-Polynesian family.Template:Sfn

The Malayo-Sumbawan proposal, however, is rejected by Blust (2010) and Smith (2017), who included the BSS languages in the putative "Western Indonesian" subgroup, alongside Javanese, Madurese, Sundanese, Lampung, Greater Barito and Greater North Borneo languages.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Kawi, a literary language based on Old Javanese, has significantly influenced Sasak.Template:Sfn It is used in Sasak puppet theatre, poetry and some lontar-based texts, sometimes mixed with Sasak.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Kawi is also used for hyperpoliteness (a speech level above Sasak's "high" level), especially by the upper class known as the mènak.Template:Sfn

Phonology

ConsonantsTemplate:Sfnp

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
	voiced	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Fricative			Template:IPA link			Template:IPA link
Rhotic			Template:IPA link~Template:IPA link
Approximant			Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link

Eight vowels appear in Sasak dialects,Template:Sfn contrasting with each other differently by dialect.Template:Sfn They are represented in Latin orthography by Template:Grapheme, Template:Grapheme, Template:Grapheme, Template:Grapheme and Template:Grapheme, with diacritics sometimes used to distinguish conflated sounds.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The usual Indonesian practice is to use Template:Grapheme for the schwa, Template:Grapheme for the close-mid front vowel, Template:Grapheme for the open-mid front vowel, Template:Grapheme for the close-mid back vowel and Template:Grapheme for the open-mid back vowel.Template:Sfn

VowelsTemplate:Sfn

	Front	Central	Back
Close	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link
Close-Mid	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Open-Mid	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link
Open		Template:IPA link

Diphthongs

Sasak has the diphthongs (two vowels combined in the same syllable) , , , , and .Template:Sfn

Morphophonology

Sasak words have a single stress on the final syllable.Template:Sfn Final Template:IPAslink in Sasak roots change phonetically to a tense (mid central vowel); for example, ('to read') will be realized (and spelled) as , but when affixed the vowel stays the same, as in , 'reading' and , 'reading instrument'.Template:Sfn In compounding, if the first element ends in a vowel, the element will take a nasal linker (Template:IPAslink in most dialects, Template:IPAslink in some). For example, compounding ('eye') and ('hair') will result in ('eyelash').Template:Sfn

Grammar

Sasak has a flexible word order, typical of western Indonesian languages.Template:Sfn Frequency distributions of the various word orders are influenced by the verb forms in the clause (i.e. whether the clause involves a nasal or an unmarked verb, see #Verbs).Template:Sfn Clauses involving the nasal verb form are predominantly subject-verb-object (SVO), similar to actor-focus classes in other western Indonesian languages.Template:Sfn In contrast, clauses with an unmarked verb form do not have a dominant word order; three of the six possible orders (subject-verb-object, verb-subject-object and object-verb-subject) occur with roughly-equal frequency.Template:Sfn

Verbs, like those of other western Indonesian languages, are not conjugated for tense, mood or aspect. All affixes are derivational.Template:Sfn Verbs may appear in two forms: unmarked (also known as basic or oral) and nasal.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The basic form appears in vocabulary lists and dictionaries,Template:Sfn and the nasal form adds the nasal prefix n-.Template:Sfn The nasal prefix, which also appears as nge-, m- and other forms, may delete the first consonant of the basic form.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn For example, the unmarked form of 'to buy' is and the nasal form is .Template:Sfn The nasal prefix can also turn a noun into the corresponding verb; for example, ('coffee') becomes ('to drink coffee').Template:Sfn The function of the prefix and nasal derivations from the basic form differ by dialect.Template:Sfn For example, eastern dialects of Sasak have three types of nasalization: the first marks transitive verbs, the second is used for predicate focus, and the third is for a durative action with a non-specific patient.Template:Sfn Imperative and hortative sentences use the basic form.Template:Sfn

Sasak has a variety of clitics, a grammatical unit pronounced as part of a word (like an affix) but a separate word syntactically—similar to the English language clitic 'll.Template:Sfn Simple clitics occur in a demonstrative specifier attached to a previous noun or noun phrase; for example, ('this') in ('this person').Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Special clitics occur with noun hosts to encode inalienable possession, and with other hosts to encode agents and patients.Template:Sfn For example, the possessive clitic (or or , depending on dialect)—which means 'my' and corresponds to the pronoun ('I')—can attach to the noun ('hand') for ('my hand').Template:Sfn

Variations

Regional

Sasak has significant regional variations, including by phonology, vocabulary and grammar.Template:Sfn Native speakers recognize five labelled dialects, named for how "like that" and "like this" are pronounced: Kutó-Kuté (predominant in North Sasak), Nggetó-Nggeté (Northeast Sasak), Menó-Mené (Central Sasak), Ngenó-Ngené (Central East Sasak, Central West Sasak) and Meriaq-Meriku (Central South Sasak).Template:Sfn However, linguist Peter K. Austin said that the five labels do not "reflect fully the extensive geographical variation ... found within Sasak" in many linguistic areas.Template:Sfn Some dialects have a low mutual intelligibility.

Speech levels

Sasak has a system of speech levels in which different words are used, depending on the social level of the addressee relative to the speaker.Template:Sfn The system is similar to that of Balinese and Javanese (languages spoken on neighbouring islands)Template:Sfn and Korean.Template:Sfn There are three levels in Sasak for the status of the addressee (low, mid- and high),Template:Sfn and a humble-honorific dimension which notes the relationship between the speaker and another referent.Template:Sfn For example, 'you' may be expressed as (low-level), (mid-), (high) or (honorific).Template:Sfn 'To eat' is (low), (mid-), (high) or (honorific).Template:Sfn

All forms except low are known as ('smooth' or 'polite') in Sasak.Template:Sfn They are used in formal contexts and with social superiors, especially in situations involving (the traditional upper caste, which makes up eight percent of the population).Template:Sfn The system is observed in regional varieties of the language. Although low-level terms have large regional variations, non-low forms are consistent in all varieties.Template:Sfn According to Indonesian languages specialist Bernd Nothofer, the system is borrowed from Balinese or Javanese.Template:Sfn

Literature

The Sasak have a tradition of writing on dried leaves of the lontar palm.Template:Sfn The Javanese Hindu-Buddhist Majapahit empire, whose sphere of influence included Lombok, probably introduced literacy to the island during the fourteenth century.Template:Sfn The oldest surviving lontar texts date to the nineteenth century; many were collected by the Dutch and kept in libraries in Leiden or Bali.Template:Sfn The Mataram Museum in Lombok also has a collection, and many individuals and families on the island keep them as heirlooms to be passed from generation to generation.Template:Sfn

The lontar texts are still read today in performances known as .Template:Sfn Readings are made for a number of occasions, including funerals, weddings and circumcision ceremonies.Template:Sfn Rural Sasak read the lontar texts as part of a ritual to ensure the fertility of their farm animals.Template:Sfn Peter K. Austin described a which was performed as part of a circumcision ceremony in 2002,Template:Sfn with paper copies of lontar texts rather than palm leaves.Template:Sfn

Lombok's lontar texts are written in Sasak, Kawi (a literary language based on old Javanese) or a combination of the two.Template:Sfn They are written in , a script nearly identical to Balinese.Template:Sfn Its basic letters consist of a consonant plus the vowel a.Template:Sfn The first five letters read , , , and , giving the script its name.Template:Sfn Syllables with vowels other than a use the basic letter plus diacritics above, below or around it.Template:Sfn Final consonants of a syllable or consonant clusters may also be encoded.Template:Sfn This writing system is also named Sasak script.

External links

• Online Dictionary Sasak language - English
• David Goldsworthy's collection of Music of Indonesia and Malaysia archived with Paradisec includes open access recordings in Sasak.