- Also spoken in
- Indonesia, Malaysia
- Script
- Latin
Where it's spoken
Omniglot says Minangkabau is spoken in West and North Sumatra, Riau, Jambi, Bengkulu and Aceh in Indonesia, and in Negeri Sembilan in Malaysia.
Sources
- Omniglot — Minangkabau (Baso Minangkabau) — Opening section (where it is spoken)
Script & pronunciation
Omniglot says Minangkabau is currently written with the Latin alphabet, and that it used to be written with a version of the Arabic alphabet. This app's Minangkabau cards show the Minangkabau text only; none of them carries a separate romanization.
Sources
- Omniglot — Minangkabau (Baso Minangkabau) — Opening section (writing system)
Grammar essentials
WALS records for Minangkabau no dominant order of subject, object and verb, an optional double negation, and no definite or indefinite article. In this app, the card for "I do not understand", Ambo indak mangarati, puts the negator indak before the verb, according to its note. The card for "How are you?", Baa kaba?, begins with the question word baa, according to its note. The card for "Fast", Capek, carries a note not to confuse it with Indonesian "capek", which means tired.
Sources
- WALS Online (Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin, eds.) — Feature 81A, "Order of Subject, Object and Verb," Minangkabau datapoint — Minangkabau datapoint (Dryer; cites Moussay 1981)
- WALS Online (Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin, eds.) — Feature 143A, "Order of Negative Morpheme and Verb," Minangkabau datapoint — Minangkabau datapoint (Dryer; cites Moussay 1981)
- WALS Online (Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin, eds.) — Feature 37A, "Definite Articles," Minangkabau datapoint — Minangkabau datapoint (Dryer; cites Moussay 1981)
Politeness & etiquette
A study of four classic Minangkabau tales identifies four functions of personal pronouns in what it calls langgam kato nan ampek: kato mandaki, kato manurun, kato malereang and kato mandata. Its abstract describes the functions as kinship and non-kinship. In this app, the card for "I do not understand", Ambo indak mangarati, marks ambo as "I (polite)". The card for "How are you?", Baa kaba?, says to add a title such as Uda, Uni or Pak after it when speaking to an older person. The card for "Sanak" says to avoid ang and kau with elders.