Introduction:

Spoken languages are made by articulating different sounds. And just like any other languages, Bahasa Sūg has its own sets of letters with their respective sounds as well. I have to remind everyone that the original letters were written in Sulat Sūg (the Jawi form) and these Latin letters are only representations of the sounds that are common with the other languages. This was discussed in our previous post “Tausūg 101: Learning Bahasa Sūg (Intro)".

For this lesson, we will use the guideline set by a Tausug Scholar, Dr. Benjamin Bangahan in his published work: “Bahasa Sūg Phonetics and Orthography” as found in this link: Bangsasulu and also included in his latest book “English-Bahasa Sūg Dictionary”. We are publishing it here with his permission as well.

Alipbā’tā’: The Alphabets in Bahasa Sūg

 The Bahasa Sūg alphabet is known as Alipba’ta’ or Alipbā’ for short. It is composed of 4 vowel sounds and 25* consonants, with a total of 29 letters.  They are as follows with their names, jawi script (Sulat sūg), the IPA equivalent, and some example words:

Batangsulat Babaris (The Vowel Sounds)

The first three vowels, /Aa/, /Ii/ and /Uu/ are the same as the English vowels, and the Arabic sounds Fatha (a), Kasra (i), and Damma (u), respectively.

There are NO /Oo/ or /Ee/ sounds in Bahasa Sūg in contrast with the English vowels. Although at present time, due to the influence of ‘modernization’, we can find some Tausūg words written with the letters “O” and “E” in them; it must still be considered that the original vowels were only four. These vowels, their derivatives, and transformations will be discussed in the lesson about vowel sounds.

The fourth vowel /Üü/ is an exception though. According to Dr. Bangahan, “It is pronounced similar to the “u” in the English word “urn” symbolized in the dictionary with “ė” with a diacritical dot on top…” Certain words in Bahasa Sūg use the letter /ü/ instead of the regular /u/. Their usage is also distinct in some Tausūgs living in the rural areas of the Sulu islands. This is a bit harder to explain in text, so for the sake of making things simpler, throughout the lessons, we will only use the vowel /Uu/ for all words with this sound unless necessary changes are needed.

THE CONSONANTS:

As for the 25 consonant letters, it is further divided into two groups, namely: the 17 Puunan Batangsulat (Basic consonants) and the 8 Biyuwsan Batangsulat (Borrowed Consonants).

Puunan Batangsulat (Basic Consonants: 17)

  The 17 basic common consonants—all except letters B and G—will have the same sounds as the universal phonetic sounds, throughout; be it in conversations or in written words.

Some letters change as their positions in a word or a sentence are changed (an example is the word “Daig” to “Haraig”) which will also be discussed along the course. The special rulings in pronouncing the sounds /Bb/ and /Gg/, and the variations in some letters like /D/, /R/, /K/, /P/, etc. will be discussed in the lessons that will follow.

Biyuwsan Batangsulat (Borrowed Consonants: 8)

There are also ‘occasional’ borrowed sounds found in Bahasa Sūg. Most of them are consonants derived or borrowed from other languages such as Arabic and Malay which are

Arabic (7): /Dh/ in ustadh, /F/ in Fatima, /Gh/ in Ghaib, /Kh/ in Khalifa, /Sh/ in Shaytan, /Q/ in Qur’an and /Z/ in Zakat. And from Malay (1): /Ch or Ts/ as in Bitsara

These borrowed letters are only used in borrowed words, proper names as names of a person as “Shamir”, “Zainab” or in other Islamic terms such as “Zakat”, “Khalifa”, “Shaytan”, etc.

*In Dr. Bangahan’s guideline, the letter /Sh/ was not included in the borrowed consonants, thus the total number of consonants was 24 letters. We added the letter /Sh/ in this lesson/blog so our total number of consonants is 25 instead of 24.

These are the letters and sounds you will meet in Bahasa Sūg. It is more or less commonly found in other languages as well. If you have a good background in Tagalog and a little of Arabic, and Malay you will surely have an easier way of learning Bahasa Sūg as well. No sweat!

We will have more of these conversations in the future, in sha Allah. For questions, suggestions, and translations, please like our Facebook page Tausūg 101, and post your queries. You can also email me at tausug101@gmail.com. Our next lesson is about the special rulings on “The Letters /Bb/ and /Gg/”.

Salam Kasilasa,

Ahmad

You can watch this video to learn more!