Tausà «g (, , , ) is an Austronesian language spoken in the province of Sulu in the Philippines and in the eastern area of the state of Sabah, Malaysia. It is widely spoken in the Sulu Archipelago (Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, and Basilan), the Zamboanga Peninsula (Zamboanga del Norte, Zamboanga Sibugay, Zamboanga del Sur, and Zamboanga City), southern Palawan, Malaysia (eastern Sabah), and Indonesia (Tarakan City and Nunukan Regency, province of North Kalimantan).
Tausà «g has some lexical similarities or near similarities with Surigaonon language of the provinces Surigao del Norte, Surigao del Sur, and Agusan del Sur and with the Butuanon language of Agusan del Norte; it has also some vocabulary similarities with Sugbuanon, Bicolano, and with other Philippine languages. Many Malay and Arabic words are found in Tausug language.
In English, the language is primarily known as Tausug (i.e., Tausug language). The local name of the language is bahasa Sà «g or Sinà «g. The term Tausà «g (, meaning "people of Sulu") is derived from two words: tau ("person") and Sà «g
is the modern form of the older term (meaning "[sea] currents"), which was also the old name of the island of Jolo. It is derived from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *sÃÂlÃÂg (âÂÂflowing water, currentâÂÂ), and is a cognate of Cebuano , Tagalog , and Malay (a borrowing).
Tausà «g is an Austronesian language. It is classified by linguists as being a member of the Bisayan languages family, which includes Cebuano and Waray. In particular, it has many similarities with the Surigaonon language of the provinces Surigao del Norte, Surigao del Sur and Agusan del Sur and with the Butuanon language of Agusan del Norte â both spoken in northeastern Mindanao; hence, Zorc (1977) groups these three languages as part of a "South Bisayan" grouping.
Tausà «g is primarily spoken in the Sulu Archipelago, which aside from the island of Sulu, also includes the Tawi-Tawi chain of islands and the island of Basilan. It is a lingua franca spoken in different areas/islands of the archipelago.
Due to migration, the language is also spoken alongside other local languages in the Zamboanga Peninsula (e.g., Cebuano and Chavacano), which includes the provinces of Zamboanga del Norte, Zamboanga Sibugay, Zamboanga del Sur, and Zamboanga City. It is also spoken in Southern Palawan, Eastern Sabah, Malaysia and in Tarakan City and Nunukan Regency, North Kalimantan, Indonesia.
Tausà «g has three vowel phonemes: /a/, /i/, /u/, with phonemic length (e.g. ëpun, "shrimp" vs. ipun, "tooth"). Stress is not phonemic and usually occurs on the final syllable.
The vowel phonemes have a broad range of allophones:
Tausà «g has expectedly developed some variations in accent and vocabulary from one area to another, but there are two basic dialects characterized by differences with regard to vowel sounds. The "Gimbahanun" (literally means people from the farm) speakers, the residents of the out-of-town rural areas, use four vowels: /a/, /i/, /u/ and /ÃÂ/, the last vowel representing schwa sound or "obscure u", a retention from Proto-Philippine and Proto-Bisayan. The "Parianun", the residents of the urban areas, use only three vowel phonemes: /a/, /i/, /u/,; the loss of /ÃÂ/ is common in many Bisayan and other Philippine languages.
The consonant phonemes are:
Allophones:
Medial gemination (of all non-glottal consonants) is phonemic.
Tausà «g has three pronoun sets:
The case markers of Tausà «g are:
Non-subject undergoers take the oblique marker when definite or a proper noun, but indefinite common nouns take the genitive marker sin.
The positive existential ("there is") is aun, the negative existential ("there is none") is way.
Verbs in Tausà «g are inflected for focus and aspect.
Affixes expressing ability:
Tausà «g numerals:
Tausà «g is today primarily written using the Latin alphabet. Historically, it had previously been written using the Arabic alphabet. The script used was derived from Jawi used in writing the Malay language. The script is referred to as Sulat Sug
The Arabic script used to write Tausà «g differs in some aspects from the script used for Arabic and in the Jawi script used for Malay.
In Sulu, there is no separate letter for [g]. Whereas in Jawi, the sound [g] is represented by the letter (which has a pronunciation [ã] in Arabic) is reserved for Arabic loanwords, and sometimes the letter .
In Sulu, there is no differentiation between [f] and [p]. Whereas in Jawi, the letters and are used respectively, in Sulu the letter is used in all instances.
For the sound [ò] in the final position, in Sulu, the letter is used whereas in Malay Jawi, the letter is instead used. The letter is associated with the sound [p] in Persian and other scripts derived from Persian. In both Malay Jawi and Sulu the letter / is used in all other positions.
For the sound [k] in the final position, in Malay Jawi, the letter is used, having the same form as when in initial or medial positions. In Sulu, similar to Arabic, it is customary to use .
Below some examples of Sulu in both Latin and Arabic scripts:
Many Tausug words derive from the Arabic language.
Some examples of Arabic words in Tausug are
Tausà «g words derived from Sanskrit