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Ponosakan language
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Ponosakan language
Ponosakan is a moribund Austronesian language spoken in the vicinity of the district of Belang, Southeast Minahasa, North Sulawesi, Indonesia. This language is almost extinct, with only four fluent speakers left as of November 2014.
However, a decade later in November 2024, according to BBC News Indonesia, only three fluent speakers of Ponosakan are left, namely Erfie Liu, Rohana Nou, and Wasila Pua. Because of this, the local government has attempted to prevent its extinction by teaching it at elementary schools since 2024.
The locals in North Sulawesi often falsely identify Ponosakan as a Minahasan language, due to the ethnic group's self-identification as a subgroup of Minahasan people. However, there is no doubt among scholars that this language actually belongs to the Gorontalo–Mongondow subgroup. The Gorontalo–Mongondow languages are commonly classified as a part of the Philippine subfamily; Robert Blust specifically includes it in the Greater Central Philippine languages, alongside—among others—Tagalog and Visayan languages.
In comparison to other Gorontalo–Mongondow languages, Ponosakan is relatively conservative in terms of phonology and structure.
Ponosakan is spoken at the eastern end of Gorontalo–Mongondow languages' distribution. This language has been spoken by the Ponosakan people in and around Belang from at least the 17th century. Before World War II, Ponosakan was the most spoken language not only in Belang, but also in several other settlements around it. But even in the 1920s, its number of speakers was already in decline. Influx of migrants from other areas also altered the region's demography; when World War II started, already half of Belang residents were newcomers who did not speak Ponosakan. By the second half of the 20th century, "virtually no ethnic Ponosakans were learning the language anymore".
In November 2014, there were reportedly only four elderly people who could still speak Ponosakan fluently. Ponosakan has the fewest speakers among the Gorontalo–Mongondow languages.
There are 16 consonants and 5 vowels in Ponosakan. In addition, the phoneme /ʤ/ only occurs in loanwords.
Consonants /w/, /r/, /h/ emerged from intervocalic and word-final lenition of earlier *(C)b, *Cd, and *(C)g (*C = any consonant). This type of lenition is still synchronic in Ponosakan: bohoyan "give (locative focus)", but mowohoy "give (active focus)"; dalom "depth", but moralom "deep". The lenited result of word-internal *d is less predictable though, as it became either /j/ and /h/ (but the former reflex is more common than the latter). Similar to Mongondow, the Ponosakan /l/ has the allophone retroflex /𝼈/, which is usually pronounced when adjacent to the front vowels /e/, /i/, /a/, and /u/. However, due to the adjacency of both phonemes and the influence of Manado Malay usage since childhood (which notably only has /l/), both letters might have undergone a phonemic merger, though older people can still barely retain the distinction.
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Ponosakan language
Ponosakan is a moribund Austronesian language spoken in the vicinity of the district of Belang, Southeast Minahasa, North Sulawesi, Indonesia. This language is almost extinct, with only four fluent speakers left as of November 2014.
However, a decade later in November 2024, according to BBC News Indonesia, only three fluent speakers of Ponosakan are left, namely Erfie Liu, Rohana Nou, and Wasila Pua. Because of this, the local government has attempted to prevent its extinction by teaching it at elementary schools since 2024.
The locals in North Sulawesi often falsely identify Ponosakan as a Minahasan language, due to the ethnic group's self-identification as a subgroup of Minahasan people. However, there is no doubt among scholars that this language actually belongs to the Gorontalo–Mongondow subgroup. The Gorontalo–Mongondow languages are commonly classified as a part of the Philippine subfamily; Robert Blust specifically includes it in the Greater Central Philippine languages, alongside—among others—Tagalog and Visayan languages.
In comparison to other Gorontalo–Mongondow languages, Ponosakan is relatively conservative in terms of phonology and structure.
Ponosakan is spoken at the eastern end of Gorontalo–Mongondow languages' distribution. This language has been spoken by the Ponosakan people in and around Belang from at least the 17th century. Before World War II, Ponosakan was the most spoken language not only in Belang, but also in several other settlements around it. But even in the 1920s, its number of speakers was already in decline. Influx of migrants from other areas also altered the region's demography; when World War II started, already half of Belang residents were newcomers who did not speak Ponosakan. By the second half of the 20th century, "virtually no ethnic Ponosakans were learning the language anymore".
In November 2014, there were reportedly only four elderly people who could still speak Ponosakan fluently. Ponosakan has the fewest speakers among the Gorontalo–Mongondow languages.
There are 16 consonants and 5 vowels in Ponosakan. In addition, the phoneme /ʤ/ only occurs in loanwords.
Consonants /w/, /r/, /h/ emerged from intervocalic and word-final lenition of earlier *(C)b, *Cd, and *(C)g (*C = any consonant). This type of lenition is still synchronic in Ponosakan: bohoyan "give (locative focus)", but mowohoy "give (active focus)"; dalom "depth", but moralom "deep". The lenited result of word-internal *d is less predictable though, as it became either /j/ and /h/ (but the former reflex is more common than the latter). Similar to Mongondow, the Ponosakan /l/ has the allophone retroflex /𝼈/, which is usually pronounced when adjacent to the front vowels /e/, /i/, /a/, and /u/. However, due to the adjacency of both phonemes and the influence of Manado Malay usage since childhood (which notably only has /l/), both letters might have undergone a phonemic merger, though older people can still barely retain the distinction.