Mamasa is an Austronesian language spoken in

West Sulawesi West Sulawesi ( id, Sulawesi Barat) is a province of Indonesia. It is located on the western side of Sulawesi island. It covers an area of 16,787.18 km2, and its capital is Mamuju. The 2010 Census recorded a population of 1,158,651, while t ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

. This language is the

native language A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...

of the

Mamasa people The Mamasa ( Mamasa: ''To Mamasa'') is a community indigenous people residing in Mamasa Regency, West Sulawesi. The Mamasa community is known in districts in Mamasa Regency. The Mamasa people are part of the Toraja sub-people. Mamasa language is ...

which is related to the Toraja people.

Dialects

Three dialects can be distinguished: * Northern Mamasa * Central Mamasa * Pattae' Speakers of Pattae' are a culturally distinct ethnic group traditionally more affiliated to the

Mandar people The Mandarese are an ethnic group in the Indonesian province of West Sulawesi in Sulawesi. The Mandar language belongs to the Northern subgroup of the South Sulawesi languages group of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian languages, Au ...

than to speakers of the Northern and Central Mamasa dialects in the interior, and for that reason Pattae' is considered by its speakers to be a language separate from Mamasa proper (i.e. Northern and Central Mamasa).

Phonology

Mamasa has the following consonants and vowels:

Dialects

Phonology

References

Further reading