Bima language

Not to be confused with Bima language (Bantu).

Bima (endonym: Nggahi Mbojo [ᵑɡa.hi ᵐbo.d͡ʒo]), or Bimanese, is an Austronesian language spoken on the eastern half of Sumbawa Island, Indonesia by the Bimanese people, which it shares with speakers of the Sumbawa language. Bima territory includes the Sanggar Peninsula [id], where the extinct Papuan language, Tambora, was once spoken. Bima is an exonym; the autochthonous name for the territory is Mbojo and the language is referred to as Nggahi Mbojo. There are over half a million Bima speakers. Neither the Bima nor the Sumbawa people have alphabets of their own for they use the alphabets of the Bugis and the Malay language indifferently.^[3]

Bima
Bimanese
Nggahi Mbojo
Mbojo Script (Aksara Mbojo) in Bima (Mbojo script variant)
Pronunciation	[ᵑɡa.hi ᵐbo.d͡ʒo]
Native to	Indonesia
Region	Sumbawa
Ethnicity	Bimanese, Dompu
Native speakers	(500,000 cited 1989)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian (Central) Eastern Lesser Sunda languages Bima
Dialects	Bima Dompu Donggo[2] Kolo Mbojo Sangar (Sanggar) Toloweri
Writing system	Latin alphabet (Bimanese Latin alphabet) Lontara script (Mbojo variant)
Official status
Regulated by	Badan Pengembangan dan Pembinaan Bahasa
Language codes
ISO 639-3	bhp
Glottolog	bima1247
ELP	Bima
Bima is spoken by the majority of the population or as their mother language    Bima is spoken by the majority of the population, but also concurrently by a large number of speakers of other languages    Bima is a minority language

Classification

Long thought to be closely related to the languages of Sumba Island to the southeast, this assumption has been refuted by Blust (2008), which makes Bima a primary branch within the Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian subgroup.^[4]

Distribution

The Bimanese language is mostly spoken in the eastern part of the island of Sumbawa in Indonesia, including Bima Regency, Dompu Regency, and Bima City. It also spoken in the islands of Banta, Sangeang Api, and Komodo.^[5] In Sumbawa Regency, this language is spoken in the districts of Empang, Plampang, Lape, Lopok, and Taliwang.^[6] The speakers can also be found in western part of Flores, particularly in the districts of Sambi Rampas (Pota village) and Reo.^[7]

Dialects

According to Ethnologue, dialects of the language include Bima, Dompu, Donggo, Kolo, Mbojo, Sangar (Sanggar), and Toloweri.

Donggo, spoken in mountainous regions to the west of Bima Bay, such as in Soromandi and in the east, especially in Donggo, is closely related to the main dialect of Bimanese. It is spoken by about 25,000 people who were formerly primarily Christians and animists; many have converted to Islam, mostly as a result of intermarriages.^[8]

Phonology

Consonants

Consonant phonemes

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t	tʃ	k	ʔ
	voiced	b	d	dʒ	ɡ
	prenasal vl.	ᵐp	ⁿt	ᶮtʃ	ᵑk
	prenasal vd.	ᵐb	ⁿd	ᶮdʒ	ᵑɡ
	implosive	ɓ	ɗ
Fricative		f	s			h
Lateral			l
Trill			r
Approximant		w		j

Vowels

Vowel phonemes

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e		o
Open		a

Vowels /i e o u/ can have shortened allophones as [ɪ ɛ ɔ ʊ].^[9]