Linguistic Loss of Li Niha in Its Contacts with Other Languages

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Linguistic Loss of Li Niha in Its Contacts with Other Languages Ingatan Gulö, STBA Teknokrat, Lampung

Abstract As a language spoken mainly by those who live in Nias Island, Li Niha is facing its big challenge as its native speakers start to speak other languages such as Indonesian and English, and in particular cases, as other people with different linguistic backgrounds start to learn the language. This study is a result of observations done on the language interactions with other languages in different places such as Gunungsitoli, Sibolga, and Pekanbaru. While in one hand certain foreigners eventually try to speak the language and in the other hand many native speakers begin to master other languages, Li Niha appears in a new form as it loses its special characteristics. The linguistic loss found and reported in this paper covers phonological aspects, orthographic varieties, and grammatical issues. These impacts of language interaction in urban life are considered dangerous to the existence of the language. Keywords: Grammar, Li Niha, linguistic loss, Nias, pronunciation

1. Introduction Li Niha is the vernacular of the people who live in the island located in the west part of Sumatera. It is nationally and internationally known as Nias (language) or Bahasa Nias and is native to less than one million speakers (Brown, 2001: xi) whose attitude is generally not supportive toward the language (Brown, 2001: 7; Duha, 2010: 171). In recent pieces of research, it is mentioned that the language consists of five dialects namely South, West, North, Gunungsitoli, and Middle dialects (Marulafau, 2004: 2; Ndruru, 2007: 3). As Gunungsitoli dialect is widely used in daily communications, books, and songs, the analysis here focuses on the dialect. The features discussed, however, are applicable to the other dialects because differences between them are mostly related to the vocabulary items and intonation. Nias is a unique language. It is unique not only in comparison to languages in Indonesia but also in comparison to languages worldwide. In addition to the fact that Nias is an open syllable language, it also has some unusually found features such as voiced bilabial fricative sound, nonnasal trilled sounds, mutation system, and peculiar type of ergativity (Brown, 2001; Gulö, 2014a). As the speakers move to other cities such as Medan, Pekanbaru, or Jakarta and by then they or their children become fluent at other languages, their ability to speak Li Niha decreases. Lossing its special features is not the only phenomenon happening as a result of this language contact. As the speakers learn other languages, they also influence the new languages as a result of their first system of language and by so doing ‘create’ another dialect of the new languages. This is clearly seen in the dialect of Indonesian spoken in Medan, Sibolga, or Nias itself (Gulö, 2014b). In both cases, this two-direction influence depends on how good the speakers are at both first and second languages. There are facts in which they are good at both. There are many cases, however, which show that Nias is losing its particular features as it comes to contact with other languages. These facts have underlain the need and the emergence of this research.

2. Method This is a descriptive-analytical and qualitative research that makes use of available facts or information to analyze and to make a critical evaluation (Kothari, 2004: 110; Stake, 2010: 19, 20). Main objective of this synchronic study is to find what features of Li Niha disappear as it comes to contact with other languages. The data were gathered in places such as Gunungsitoli,

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Sibolga, Medan, Pekanbaru, and Lampung as the researcher traveled to those places. In addition to those direct interactions with the native speakers, the data were also taken from wider sources such as books, song lyrics, and social media. This was possible to do as this topic covers a wide range of linguistic issues and usages. Above all, as a native speaker of the language, the researcher had chances to conduct personal observations on the language. The data were processed by directly studying the formal grammar and features of the language in books and observing the real pronunciations of phonemes from the native speakers, especially those who speak Nias as their only language. The next step was to observe the actual usages and pronunciations of those features in urban societies. In this process, lots of actual sources such as song lyrics and social media texts were involved.

3. Discussion 3.1 Loss of Orthographic Features Among four orthographic features presented here, the group of letters ndr is often used inappropriately when writing in Li Niha. Considerable number of proofs in which these letters are used correctly is found in Nias old literatures. Nias linguistic items such as sindruhu ‘true’ (Harefa, 1970: 9), ndraono ‘children’ (La’ija, 1971: 35), and andre ‘this, here’ (Halawa et al., 1983: 119) are examples of how these letters are used together. The data taken from postings and comments in Nias Facebook group of humors show that these three letters has reduced into two letters only; r is omitted from the cluster. In those data, sindruhu, ndraono, and andre are written as *sinduhu, *ndaono, and *ande respectively. This is mostly influenced by letters nd found in Indonesian as the major language used in Indonesia. As a matter of fact, Indonesian does not have ndr cluster of letters. Using ndr or nd is not merely a matter of choice as nd in Indonesian is pronounced differently from ndr in Nias. See point 3.2 for further explanation on the phonological importance of these letters. Another linguistic feature that Li Niha loses is the right letter for open-mid central unrounded /ɜ/ sound. In the language, this phoneme is represented by letter o with an umlaut over it. In Nias latest and well-known dictionary entitled Kamus Li Niha: Nias - Indonesia, for example, words containing this sound are always written correctly as in böi ‘don’t’, möi ‘go’, and tödö ‘heart’ (Lase, 2011: 68, 206, 300). In contrary, these words are respectively written as boi, todo, and moi in many Nias song lyrics. Other cases in which letter ö are typed as plain o can be found in books (Zalukhu, 1992) and social media. In addition to the fact that this letter is unique and thus should be maintained, substituted it by o is also confusing as the language also has a lot of words with plain o but pronounced as open-mid back rounded sound. This underlies the need of typing ö correctly. Due to difficulty in typing the right letter, sometimes ö is also incorrectly substituted by o with tilde (Zalukhu, 2012), circumflex (Zebua, 1996), or numeral 6. Those instant solutions make Li Niha lose its original feature. The third orthographic loss of Li Niha in its contact to other languages is related to letter w with a circumflex over it. Nias has both this letter ŵ and the plain w in its vocabulary items. Letter ŵ carries voiced bilabial fricative sound // present in the language. See point 3.2 for its phonological significance. One of problems about this letter is that it is often left unmarked (Duha, 2012; Zalukhu, 2012), treating it the same as plain w. The other problem is that there has been conventional marking in which the letter w pronounced as /w/, like that in Indonesian and English, is marked but the letter w which carries the voiced bilabial fricative sound is left unmarked (Hämmerle, 1999 and 2012). In Nias dictionary mentioned above (2011: xv), Lase accepts the suggestion of Halawa in Nias Portal website to re-visited the use of these letters by leaving the one that sounds like Indonesian or English w unmarked and marking the one that sounds differently by a circumflex. This, however, is ignored in Nias song lyrics, books, and writings in social media. The last orthographic feature often ignored in Li Niha is the use of apostrophe which indicates intervocalic stops between certain letters or syllables. As Indonesian and most other languages such as Bataknese and Minangese known by Nias native speakers do not use

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apostrophe with the same functions, it is not uncommon to find words in which the apostrophe is substituted by a full stop. The data gathered for the purpose of carrying out the objective of this research provide many examples in which the right use of the apostrophe is ignored. In sentence Fahuo-huo mao khö de’u iada’a; da ufondrondrongo ‘A cat is talking to a rat right now; let me listen to it’, for example, is written Fahuo-huo mao kh6 de.u ia da.a, da.ufondro-ndrongo. Other incorrect usages would write de’u ‘rat’ as *de,u with a comma, *deu without a mark at all, or *de u leaving a space between the syllables.

3.2 Loss of Phonological Features While the ones explored above are overtly seen in writings or printed materials, the issues brought up here are seen in spoken Nias. Three of those four features above are discussed partially to avoid overlapping explanation providing in this part. It is quite complex to separate orthographic features from their phonological issues. The consonant cluster ndr, for example, is not pronounced like nd in Indonesian anda ‘you’ or English splendid. Just like in English, letter n in Indonesian cluster nd is always grouped with the preceding vowel and d with the one that follows. Anda is divided into an-da and splendid into splen-did in their syllabifications. In contrary to this, Nias letter n in the cluster ndr is not grouped with the preceding vowel. The three letters are treated as one phoneme with non-nasalized voiced alveolar plosive trill sound. This sound is rarely found in languages generally (Ladefoged and Maddieson, 1996: 230; Blust, 2013: 201). Thus, incorrectly writing andre ‘here, this’ as *ande is identical to incorrect pronunciation of the word. Another phonological issue similar to ndr is Nias cluster of m and b. This mb carries voiced bilabial trill // sound. In writing system, there is no problem about this group of letters because many languages allow these letters to occur in sequence, but there is a problem about it related to Nias phonology. Just like ndr is treated as a phoneme, mb is also considered as one sound in Li Niha. Thus, unlike Indonesian sem-bah ‘worship’ or English word im-bal-ance, Nias words such as ambö ‘less’ and umbu ‘wellspring’ are divided into a-mbö and u-mbu respectively (not *am-bö and *um-bu) because Nias mb is non nasal. Accordingly, the syllabification of the word andre above is a-ndre, not *an-dre. Quoting from Blust, trilled sounds are rarely found in world languages (2013: 672). These letters, however, are often treated the same as those in Indonesian or other languages such as Bataknese, making Nias lose its phonological feature. That those Nias groups of letters are divided into such a way of syllabification is based on the fact that Nias is an open syllabic language. All syllables of Nias words end in vowels, not in consonants. This stands out as another feature being lost as borrowing words from other languages into Nias increases from time to time. Related to voiced bilabial fricative sound // whose orthograpic feature explained above in 2.1, formally being represented by letter ŵ, it is surprisingly found that many people are unable to pronounce it correctly. The word baŵa // ‘mouth’, for instance, is mostly pronounced as /w/, // or /v/. In addition to inaccurately writing it as *yaahowu or *ya.ahowu, for further instance, Nias greeting ya’ahoŵu is often pronounced // or /v/ by nonnatives because this is another Nias unusual sound (Brown, 2001: 12) and is rarely found in the world languages. The problem is that native speakers who have been speaking other languages which absolutely do not have this sound, are also unable to pronounce Nias words with this sound correctly. Some Nias singers, for example, miss this pronunciation. Other phonological features but less influenced ones are voiced dental fricative // represented by letter d and voiceless velar fricative sound // represented by letters kh. There are Nias dialects that treat d as voiced alveolar plosive as in other languages sorrounding the island but there are dialects, such as Gunungsitoli dialect, that treat it like those letters th in English mother or they. When it comes to contact with other languages, this voiced dental fricative phoneme is easily affected by voiced alveolar plosive represented by the same letter in the other languages. While languages such as Indonesian and Bataknese do not have (or ocurring less often,

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as in Indonesian akhir ‘end’) velar fricative sound, Nias is full of it. In Nias contact with other languages, however, this phoneme is mistakenly treated as // or // alone.

3.3 Loss of Grammatical Features As an ergative language, Nias maintains the same grammatical case for the object of a transitive verb and the single core argument of an intransitive verb while treating the agent of a transitive verb differently (Brown, 2001: xi; Crysmann, 2009). This morphological ergativity is carried out by mutation system. The examples below illustrate ergativity in Li Niha. (1) Tohare zikhö (Ants come). (2) I’a zikhö (He eats ants). (3) I’a sikhö (Ants eat [it]). Focusing on the second part of the first sentence, zikhö is in mutated form of sikhö ‘ant’ as it is the single argument of the intransitive verb Tohare ‘come, arrive’. In the second, it is also in mutated form as it is the object of the transitive verb -a ‘eat’. In the third, in contrary, the word is in its unmutated form as it is now the agent of the verb -a. This can be seen easily from the English translations provided. It needs to be underlined that the pronominal prefix I- in the second sentence refers to an indefinite agent while in the third, it refers to the noun sikhö. As this system is not known in most languages with which Li Niha is being in contact, Nias natives who are very fluent at those other languages, and thus less knowledgeable about Li Niha, often incorrectly put words in ergative and asbolutive cases. Among the data found, sentences below exemplify how Nias loses this unique grammatical feature. (4) Mofökhö *ya’ugö (You are sick). (5) Olifu ia *fahö (He forgot the chisel). Sentence (1) is exemplified by incorrect sentence (4) and sentence (2) by that in (5). While there were many similar data about the ergative, no datum was found about the incorrect use of the asbolutive form as in sentence (3). This can be understood as the forms of the whole sentences in (2) and (3) are easily distinguished. As a language that allows adjectives and nouns to be the predicates of sentences, the adjective Mofökhö ‘sick’ in sentence (4) is considered in the same syntactic function as Tohare in (1). In other words, as Nias personal pronoun for you in (4) is the single core argument of the predicate Mofökhö, it has to be in mutated form ndra’ugö ‘you’, not ya’ugö. In (5), the personal pronoun ia ‘s/he’ is the agent of the verb olifu ‘forget’. According to the right construction discussed above, the word for chisel thus should be in mutated form ŵahö ‘chisel’ (not fahö) because it is the object of the transitive verb that begins the sentence. Other related examples are those in (6) and (7) below. (6) Mate *ya’odo (7) *Ya’aga mofanö

(I die). (We go).

That in (6) re-emphasizes the ungrammatical sentence provided in (4). Here, the predicate is the verb Mate ‘die’. According to Brown (2001: 197), this intransitive verb should be followed by mutated personal pronoun ndra’odo ‘I’ (in this case, mutated form of unmutated ya’odo ‘I’) as the subject of the sentence. Besides this mutated form, it is also acceptable to use pronominal suffix -do to replace the free form ndra’odo without any difference in meaning. Seen from the datum, however, personal pronoun *ya’odo is used instead of the right form ndra’odo or -do. In sentence (7), the personal pronoun *Ya’aga ‘we’ is incorrectly used. Looking at the verb mofanö ‘go, leave’, the only conclusion possible to draw is that it is the predicate and thus needs a subject in mutated form. In other words, the right structural order and case of the sentence is like that in (1) or like the grammatical versions of (4) and (6). To make this sentence grammatical, the unmutated personal pronoun *Ya’aga should be changed into mutated ndra’aga and moved to the end to have Mofanö ndra’aga (We go) or into pronominal suffix -ga to have Mofanöga with the same meaning. This construction is influenced by English or Indonesian structure which tends to put the subject in front of the sentence like in We go or Kami berangkat

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‘We leave’. That in (7) is only acceptable in fronting, where the subject is moved to the beginning of the sentence, but the context where this data is used does not support this possibility.

4. Conclusion Linguistic loss of Li Niha in its contact with other languages covers areas such as appropriate characters, phonology, morphology, and syntax of the language. The ones easily lost are features that become its special characteristics; features that make Nias different from other languages. In other words, this linguistic loss is dangerous to the existence of the language. It is suggested that Nias native speakers try not to ignore the language special futures in their effort to study other languages and that nonnatives who study Li Niha respect the language by trying to write and pronounce the words appropriately. References Blust, Robert. 2013. The Austronesian Languages. Canberra: Asia-Pacific Linguistics. Brown, Lea. 2001. A Grammar of Nias Selatan. Sydney: University of Sydney. Crysmann, Berthold. 2009. Deriving superficial ergativity in Nias, Proceding of the HPSG09 Conference. Germany: CSLI Publications. Duha, Nata’alui. 2010. Li Niha - Bahasa Kita. In Tim Penyusun. Pusaka Nias dalam Media Warisan. Gunungsitoli: Pusaka Nias. Duha, Nata’alui. 2012. Omo Niha: Perahu Darat di Pulau Bergoyang. Gunungsitoli: Yayasan Pusaka Nias. Gulö, Ingatan. 2014a. Unique characteristics of Nias language. International Journal of English and Education, 3(3), 26-32. Gulö, Ingatan. 2014b. The influence of Nias language to bahasa Indonesia. Konferensi Linguistik Tahunan Atma Jaya. Jakarta: Pusat Kajian Bahasa dan Budaya Universitas Katolik Indonesia Atma Jaya. Halawa, T. et al. 1983. Struktur Bahasa Nias. Jakarta: Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengembangan Bahasa Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan. Hämmerle, P. Johannes M. (ed.). 1999. Nidunö-dunö ba Nöri Onolalu. Gunungsitoli: Yayasan Pusaka Nias. Hämmerle, P. Johannes M. (ed.). 2012. Ulu Noyo: Cerita Rakyat di Hulu Sungai Oyo. Gunungsitoli: Yayasan Pusaka Nias. Harefa, Fg. 1970. Erönu. Gunungsitoli: Gloria Onoŵaembo. Kamus Li Niha: Nias - Indonesia. 2011. Jakarta: Penerbit Buku Kompas. Kothari, C.R. 2004. Research Methodology: Methods and Techniques. New Delhi: New Age International Publishers. La’ija, B. 1971. Kumpulan Peribahasa Nias. Gunungsitoli: BNKP Tohia. Ladefoged, Peter and Maddieson, Ian. 1996. The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Marulafau, Siamir. 2004. Morfologi Verba Bahasa Nias Dialek Gunungsitoli. Medan: Universitas Sumatera Utara. Ndruru, Sopani. 2007. Klitika Bahasa Nias Dialek Tengah. Medan: Universitas Sumatera Utara. Stake, Robert E. 2010. Qualitative Research: Studying How Things Work. New York: The Guilford Press. Zalukhu, Stefanus Sukawati. 1992. Börö Hoya. Jakarta: Gramedia Pustaka Utama. Zalukhu, Sukawati. 2012. Tabalonga Liu II: Manömanö Nono Niha. Medan: Percetakan Clarist. Zebua, HS. 1996. Manömanö Nono Niha Auli Tetunö. Gunungsitoli: U.D. Harapan.

Proceedings Editor Publisher Place/City Year

: Konferensi Linguistik Universitas Airlangga : Deny A. Kwary : Airlangga University Press : Surabaya : 2014

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