Makassar Malay population estimate

[David Gil]

I'm not familiar with other estimates, and I don't have one of my own.  
But one way to reconcile the 1.8m estimate with reality derives from the 
plausible assumption that Makassarese Malay is also spoken in other 
parts of Sulawesi.  There are two relatively well-known Malay varieties 
in Sulawesi, Makassarese and Manado.  But what kind of Malay/Indonesian 
do people speak in Bone, Torajaland, Palu, Gorantalo, and all the other 
places in Sulawesi?  Is there a sharp boundary somewhere between 
Makassarese and Manado Malay or does one gradually shade into the 
other?  To the best of my knowledge nobody has studied this question 
systematically.

Last year I went to Kendari in SE Sulawesi to look into this.  My 
impression was that the Malay/Indonesian spoken there had many 
Makassarese Malay features but was also quite different in other 
respects.  So whether one counts SE Sulawesi Malay/Indonesian as a 
"dialect" or "variant" of Makassarese Malay is entirely a matter of 
definition -- which of course will impinge on any population estimate 
for Makassarese Malay.  Presumably similar observations hold in other 
places in Sulawesi.

David Gil

> Hi,
>
> 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.
>
> One reason (among others) why I doubt this figure is that the total 
> population of /the entire city of Makassar/ on South Sulawesi, 
> Indonesia, is only aroung 1.2 or 1.3 million people.. 
>
> 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? 
>
> Conversely, is anyone willing to support the reported estimate?  My 
> own hunch about this is that somewhere along the way someone confused 
> Makassar Malay http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=mfp 
> with the Makassar (Makasar) language 
> http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=mak (for which an 
> estimate of 1.9 million speakers is reasonably in the ballbark). 
>
> David Mead
>
>
> 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. 
>
>  *Endangered Malay Varieties: The Malay Contact Varieties of Eastern 
> Indonesia
> *Scott Paauw (University of Rochester)
>
> The role of the Malay language historically as a trade language gave 
> rise to a number of contact varieties of Malay in Eastern Indonesia. 
> *These varieties include some which never gained significant numbers 
> of native speakers (Makassar Malay*, 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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-- 
David Gil

Department of Linguistics
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany

Telephone: 49-341-3550321 Fax: 49-341-3550119
Email: gil at eva.mpg.de
Webpage:  http://www.eva.mpg.de/~gil/


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