The Language Family Relation of Local Languages in Gorontalo Province (A Lexicostatistic Study)

Abstract

This study aims to find out the relation of language family and glottochronology of Gorontalo language and Atinggola language in Gorontalo Province. The research employed a comparative method, and the research instrument used a list of 200 basic Morris Swadesh vocabularies. The data source was from documents or gloss translation of 200 basic vocabularies and interview of two informants (speakers) of Gorontalo and Atinggola languages. Data analysis was done by using the lexicostatistic technique. The following indicators were used to determine the word family: (a) identical pairs, (b) the word pairs have phonemic correspondences, (c) phonetic similarities, and (d) a different phoneme. The results of data analysis reveal that there are 109 or 55.05% word pairs of the word family out of 200 basic vocabularies of Swadesh. The results of this study also show that the glottochronology of Gorontalo language and Atinggola language are (a) Gorontalo and Atinggola languages are one single language at 1.377 + 122 years ago, (b) Gorontalo and Atinggola languages are one single language at 1,449 - 1,255 years ago. This study concludes that (a) the relation of the kinship of these two languages is in the family group, (b) glottochronology (separation time between Gorontalo language and Atinggola language is between 1.4 to 1.2 thousand years ago or in the 12 th – 14 th century. Keywords : relation, kinship level, local language, Gorontalo Province, lexicostatistics study