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Ulumandaʼ is an Austronesian language of West Sulawesi, Indonesia. It is nearly intelligible with other Pitu Ulunna Salu languages, but Ulumanda’ is distinguished by an unusual series of front vowels.

Phonology

The vowel inventory of Ulumandaʼ is as follows:

The attested consonant inventory is as follows:

Vowel harmony

Ulumandaʼ is unusual among the Austronesian languages of Sulawesi for featuring a vowel harmony opposition of front vowels /æ, ø, y/ to corresponding back vowels /ɑ, o, u/ comparable to that of the Uralic languages. Originally, fronted vowels arose from the fronting of back vowels before syllable-final velar consonants *k and *ŋ, but were phonemicized in final syllables when word-final *-m and *-n merged with *ŋ to result in -ŋ but did not front a preceding back vowel unlike original *-ŋ. These fronted vowels then fronted any other back vowels in a word except if a neutral vowel like *e or *i intervened between the vowels.

A contrastive pair includes /uraŋ/ "person" vs. /uræŋ/ "shrimp".

References

1. Ulumandaʼ at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Friberg, Timothy; Laskowske, Thomas V. (1989). "South Sulawesi languages" (PDF). In J.N. Sneddon (ed.). Studies in Sulawesi linguistics part 1. NUSA 17. Jakarta: Badan Penyelenggara Seri Nusa. pp. 1–17.
3. Zobel, Erik (September 15, 2014). "Vowel Fronting in Ulumanda' (South Sulawesi)". Sounds from around the Pacific Ocean. Retrieved April 19, 2024.
4. Smith, Beverly Kean (1993). A Phonological Reconstruction of Proto-Pitu Ulunna Salu. University of Texas at Arlington.

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