Balantak language

"Balantak" redirects here. For the district, see Balantak, Sulawesi.

Balantak is an Austronesian language spoken at the head of the eastern peninsula of Sulawesi, Indonesia. It is classified as a member of the Saluan-Banggai branch of the Celebic subgroup. The Balantak language is the primary language of the Balantak people. Although 90% of the population are also proficient in Indonesian, the vernacular is still vigorously used in everyday contexts, and most children only speak Balantak before entering school.^[2]

Balantak
Wurung Balantak
Native to	Indonesia
Region	Sulawesi
Ethnicity	Balantak people
Native speakers	(30,000 cited 2000)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Celebic Saluan-Banggai Eastern Balantak
Language codes
ISO 639-3	blz
Glottolog	bala1315
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Phonology

Balantak has the following phoneme inventory:^[3]

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n		ŋ ⟨ng⟩
Plosive	voiceless	p	t	t͡ʃ ⟨c⟩[a]	k	ʔ ⟨'⟩
	voiced	b	d	d͡ʒ ⟨j⟩[a]	g
Fricative			s			h[a]
Lateral			l
Trill			r
Approximant		w		j ⟨y⟩

1. Only occur in loanwords

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	ɛ ⟨e⟩		ɔ ⟨o⟩
Low		a

Sequences of like vowels are phonetically realized as long vowels, e.g. toop [tɔ:p] 'cigarette', nuur [nu:r] 'coconut'.