Pamona language

"Pamona" redirects here. For other uses, see Pomona (disambiguation).

Pamona (also Poso or Bare’e) is an Austronesian language spoken in Central and South Sulawesi, Indonesia. It is part of the northern group of the Kaili–Pamona languages.

Pamona
Bare’e
Native to	Indonesia
Region	Sulawesi
Native speakers	(140,000 cited 2000)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Celebic Kaili–Pamona Northern Pamona
Language codes
ISO 639-3	pmf
Glottolog	pamo1252
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Dialects

Ethnologue lists the following as dialects: Laiwonu (Iba), Pamona (Poso), Rapangkaka (Aria), Taa (Topotaa, Wana), Tobau (Bare’e, Tobalo, Tobao), Tokondindi, Tomoni, and Topada.^[2]

The Poso dialect is the prestige dialect, specifically the variety spoken in the interior around Lake Poso. The coastal Poso variety (Poso Pesisir) – mostly spoken by Muslims in the trading hub Poso – does not differ significantly from the interior prestige variety (e.g. it uses the same negator bare'e as the interior variety), but has undergone some lexical influence from Buginese and the Parigi dialect of Kaili.^[3][4]

Phonology

Pamona has the following sound inventory:^[5]

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		k	ʔ
	voiced	b	d	ɟ	g
Prenasalized plosive	voiceless	ᵐp	ⁿt	ᶮc	ᵑk
	voiced	ᵐb	ⁿd	ᶮɟ	ᵑg
Fricative			s			h
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Trill			r
Approximant		ʋ	l	j

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Close-Mid	e		o
Open		a