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Hi,<br><br>
I have my doubts about the population estimate for Makassar Malay given
in the Ethnologue 16th ed, namely 1,880,000 speakers (2000). In the
15th edition the reported figure is 1,876,548 with the source as (2000
WCD). Prior to that, Makassar Malay was not listed in the
Ethnologue.<br><br>
One reason (among others) why I doubt this figure is that the total
population of <i>the entire city of Makassar</i> on South Sulawesi,
Indonesia, is only aroung 1.2 or 1.3 million people.. <br><br>
I emailed WCD (World Christian Database) some time ago asking about their
source of their Makassarese Malay estimate (since they are obviously a
secondary, not a primary, source), but never recieved a reply. Does
anyone out there who has studied Malayic varieties have (or know of) a
different estimate -- especially in terms of L1 versus L2 speakers?
<br><br>
Conversely, is anyone willing to support the reported estimate? My
own hunch about this is that somewhere along the way someone confused
Makassar Malay
<a href="http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=mfp" eudora="autourl">
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=mfp</a> with the
Makassar (Makasar) language
<a href="http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=mak" eudora="autourl">
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=mak</a> (for which an
estimate of 1.9 million speakers is reasonably in the ballbark).
<br><br>
David Mead<br><br>
<br>
P.S. I also came across this on the internet. Whether others
would dispute Scott's statement or not I don't know. However, if Makassar
Malay had upwards of 2 million speakers I don't think he'd be making it
at all. <br><br>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times"> <b>Endangered Malay Varieties:
The Malay Contact Varieties of Eastern Indonesia <br>
</b>Scott Paauw (University of Rochester) <br><br>
The role of the Malay language historically as a trade language gave rise
to a number of contact varieties of Malay in Eastern Indonesia.
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" color="#000080"><b>These
varieties include some which never gained significant numbers of native
speakers (Makassar Malay</b></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">,
Alor Malay), some which have only gained significant numbers of native
speakers relatively recently (North Moluccan Malay, Papuan Malay), and
five varieties which have been used as a native language by communities
for hundreds of years (Ambon Malay, Manado Malay, Banda Malay, Kupang
Malay and Larantuka Malay). For a long time, these varieties were stable,
existing as the native tongues of their communities, and often as a
regional lingua franca with speakers of other languages as well.
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