Population and Importance
With a population of just over five million (Suryadinata, Arifin and Ananta 2003:7), the Bugis are the largest ethnic group of Sulawesi, and the eighth largest in all of Indonesia.
Owing to the prominent position of their former kingdom, as well as significant émigré populations, Bugis influence is felt outside of their homeland area, including significant portions of West, Central and Southeast Sulawesi provinces. Based on census data for the year 2000, people who identified themselves as Bugis comprised nineteen percent of the population of the province of Southeast Sulawesi and fourteen percent of the population of Central Sulawesi (Permanent Committee on Geographical Names 2003:6). Information for West Sulawesi, which became an official province in 2004, is not available.
Dialects
The Bugis language comprises eleven major dialects (Friberg and Friberg 1988:306, see also the map on page 319).
- Sawitto
- Sidenreng-Rappang
- Barru
- Pangkajene Kepulauan
- Camba
- Soppeng
- Wajo
- Luwu
- Bone
- Sinjai
- Pasangkayu
Dialect boundaries often correspond to former principalities.
Literary Tradition
The Bugis language has a centuries-old literary tradition in which the so-called Bugis or lontara' script was used to write the language, originally on connected strips of lontar palm leaflets (see Noorduyn 1993 inter alia).
References
Friberg, Timothy; and Barbara Friberg. 1988. A dialect geography of Bugis. Papers in Western Austronesian Linguistics no. 4 (Pacific Linguistics, A-79), edited by Hein Steinhauer, 303–330. Canberra: Australian National University.
Noorduyn, J. 1993. Variation in the Bugis/Makasarese script. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 149:533–570.
Permanent Committee on Geographical Names. October 2003. Indonesia: Population and administrative divisions. PCGN. Online. URL: http://pcgn.org.uk/Indonesia-%20Population&AdminDivs-%202003.pdf (accessed July 30, 2012).
Suryadinata, Leo; Evi Nurvidya Arifin, and Aris Ananta. 2003. Indonesia’s population: Ethnicity and religion in a changing political landscape. (Indonesia’s Population Series, 1.) Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
