Komering language

Komering
Cawa Komering
Native to	Indonesia
Region	Sumatra
Ethnicity	Komering people
Native speakers	470,000 (2000 census)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Lampungic Komering
Writing system	Lampung script (past) Latin (present)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	kge
Glottolog	kome1238

Three Komering girls in 1929

Komering is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken in Indonesia, in the southern part of Sumatra.

Location

Komering in the Lampung Province in southern Sumatra, along the Komering River.

Classification

Komering belongs to the group of Lampung languages, one of the groups within the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian family. Walker regards Komering as a mere dialect, presenting Lampung as a single language instead of a group of languages; others treat it as a dialect specifically of Lampung Api.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		k	ʔ
	voiced	b	d		ɡ
Affricate	voiceless			tʃ
	voiced			dʒ
Fricative			s			h
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Lateral			l
Trill			r
Approximant		w		j

A voiced fricative /z/ also occurs, but only as a result of foreign loanwords.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid			o
Open		a

Vocabulary

Examples of basic Komering words:

English	Komering	Indonesian/Malay
tree	kayu	kayu ("wood")
ashes	habu	abu
world	tanoh	tanah
grass	jukuk	rumput
egg	hatolui	telur
three	tolu	tiga
five	lima	lima
rain	hujau	hujan
to steal	hambur	hambur ("to waste")
egg	tohlui	telur
four	pak	empat
now	ganta	sekarang

Sources

• Adelaar, Alexander, The Austronesian Languages of Asia and Madagascar: A Historical Perspective, The Austronesian Languages of Asia and Madagascar, pp. 1–42, Routledge Language Family Series, Londres, Routledge, 2005, ISBN 0-7007-1286-0
• Walker, Dale F., A Lexical Study of Lampung Dialects, Miscellaneous Studies in Indonesian and Languages in Indonesia, Part I (editor: John W. M. Verhaar), NUSA Linguistic Studies in Indonesian and Languages of Indonesia, Volume 1, pp. 11–21, Jakarta, Badan Penyelenggara Seri NUSA, 1975.
• Walker, Dale F., A Grammar of the Lampung Language: the Pesisir Dialect of Way Lima, NUSA Linguistic Studies in Indonesian and Languages of Indonesia, Volume 2, Jakarta, Badan Penyelenggara Seri NUSA, 1976.
• Sofjan Abdurrahman, and Colin Yallop. A Brief Outline of Komering Phonology and Morphology, Miscellaneous studies in Indonesian and languages in Indonesia, Part VI (editor: Amran Halim), NUSA Linguistic Studies in Indonesian and Languages of Indonesia, Volume 7, pp. 11-18, Jakarta, Universitas Katolik Indonesia Atma Jaya, 1979.