Bima (endonym: ), or Bimanese, is an Austronesian language spoken on the eastern half of Sumbawa Island, Indonesia by the Bimanese and peoples (Bima-Dompu), which it shares with speakers of the Sumbawa language. Bima territory includes the , where the extinct Papuan language, Tambora, was once spoken. Bima is an exonym; the autochthonous name for the territory is Mbojo and the language is referred to as Nggahi Mbojo. There are over half a million Bima speakers. Neither the Bima nor the Sumbawa people have alphabets of their own for they use the alphabets of the Bugis and the Malay language indifferently.
Bimanese is also spoken in several areas of Sumbawa Regency, Lombok, and East Nusa Tenggara (primaly in Komodo island and eastern part of Flores). In Flores, Bima is spoken by people in the Reo, Pota, and East Manggarai regions.
Classification Long thought to be closely related to the languages of Sumba Island to the southeast, this assumption has been refuted by Blust (2008), which makes Bima a primary branch within the Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian subgroup.
Distribution The Bimanese language is mostly spoken in the eastern part of the island of Sumbawa in Indonesia, including Bima Regency, Dompu Regency, and Bima City. It also spoken in the islands of Banta, Moyo, Sangeang, Komodo and Rinca.Ethnologue In Sumbawa Regency, this language is spoken in the districts of Empang, Plampang, Lape, Lopok, and Taliwang. The speakers can also be found in western part of Flores, particularly in the districts of Sambi Rampas (Pota village) and Reo.
Dialects According to Ethnologue, dialects of the language include Bima, Dompu, Donggo, Kolo, Mbojo, Sangar (Sanggar), and Toloweri.
Donggo, spoken in mountainous regions to the west of Bima Bay, such as in Soromandi and in the east, especially in Donggo, is closely related to the main dialect of Bimanese. It is spoken by about 25,000 people who were formerly primarily Christians and animists; many have converted to Islam, mostly as a result of intermarriages.
Phonology Consonants +Consonant phonemesLabialAlveolarPalatalVelarGlottalNasalPlosive/Affricatevoicelessvoicedprenasal vl.prenasal vd.implosiveFricativeLateralTrillApproximant
Vowels +Vowel phonemesFrontCentralBackCloseMidOpen
Vowels can have shortened allophones as .
References
Further reading
External links
Paradisec has a collection of open access recordings of Bima from a 2005 language documentation class, as well as some recordings from Robert Blust. Kaipuleohone also has an open-access collection of Robert Blust's materials including a recording of Bima. https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2022/22150-biima-script.pdf