Sulawesi Language Alliance

Championing Local Languages in the Heart of Indonesia

Language Texts

The series Sulang Language Data and Working Papers: Language Texts is published by Sulawesi Language Alliance. Texts may be from any genre, including but not limited to folktales, personal narratives, speeches, how-to texts and conversations, so long as the text is in one of the indigenous languages of Sulawesi and includes a free translation in a major language such as English or Indonesian. At the discretion of the person who prepared the resource, some texts include morpheme breaks with in-line glossing, and/or an accompanying sound or video file. See the descriptions of individual resources below.

Texts appearing in this series are works in progress, and updated versions may be posted from time to time. To submit a text for inclusion in this series, see our guidelines on how to submit a resource.


Papers in this series are posted as PDF files. PDF files can be viewed or printed using the free Adobe Reader.

Please make sure you have read and agree to our terms and conditions of use before downloading any documents or other files.


001 A Text in the Bobongko Language (Central Sulawesi, Indonesia) with Sound
Description: The story of Monkey and Turtle, a thirty-four sentence folktale in the Bobongko language of Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, is presented with morpheme-by-morpheme glossing and English free translation. This text originally appeared in print in 2001, but is published here for the first time with its sound file.
Year Published: 2010
Subject Language: Bobongko
Publication Language: English, Bobongko
Contributors: told by Nurlan Andy Massa; recorded, transcribed, glossed and translated by David Mead
002 Five Mori Bawah Folktales, circa 1918
Description: This work reproduces the five Mori Bawah folktales which originally appeared in Van Eelen and Ritsema (1918-1919). These folktales are significant as they appear to be the only native Mori texts collected during the Dutch colonial era that survived the ravages of World War II and subsequent periods of civil strife. The texts, which originally appeared side by side a Dutch free translation, are presented here with updated spelling, morpheme-by-morpheme glossing, English free translation, and annotations. The original grammar notes that accompanied the texts have not been reproduced, as these were superseded by the publication of S. J. Esser’s grammar of Mori (1927, 1933).
Year Published: 2012
Subject Language: Mori Bawah (Tinompo dialect)
Publication Language: English, Mori Bawah
Contributors: David Mead; folktales originally collected by H. G. van Eelen and J. Ritsema
003 ‘The Wondrous Crocodile’ and ‘Testimony’: Two Texts from the Wotu Language of South Sulawesi, Indonesia
Description: This paper presents two interlinearized texts in the Wotu language along with annotations and Indonesian and English translations. Both texts are personal narratives told by Stephanus Syuaib, a native speaker of Wotu. The first text is a story about an accident his grandfather experienced and his subsequent healing through visits with a crocodile, while the second concerns the author’s own religious conversion.
Year Published: 2013
Subject Language: Wotu
Publication Language: English, Indonesian, Wotu
Contributors: Stefanus Syuaib and David Mead
004 The Story of Turtle and Monkey (Andio Language, Eastern Sulawesi, Indonesia)
Description: The well-known story of Turtle, Monkey and their banana tree is told in the Andio language. This 140-sentence folktale is presented as it was originally written in 1988. No translation is currently available.
Year Published: 2013
Subject Language: Andio
Publication Language: Andio
Contributors: Arpat Bidja
005 Children's Verse in Kulisusu (Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia)
Abstract: In this paper I present eighteen silly and sometimes even nonsensical children’s verses recorded in the Kulisusu area of Buton Island, Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia, including a few that are primarily in Malay/Indonesian. Some verses are performed with accompanying actions, and from this perspective can be considered a kind of play. Accompanying sound files are embedded in the document.
Year Published: 2020
Subject Language: Kulisusu
Publication Language: English, Kulisusu, Indonesian
Contributors: David Mead

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