Jurnal Budaya FIB UB Lani Phonological Interference in Indonesian Pronunciation Vol. 1 No. 1, Agustus 2020, pp 17-21 https://jurnalbudaya.ub.ac.id Lani Phonological Interference in Indonesian Pronunciation Onni Tabuni 1, Ika Nurhayani2 and Hamamah3 1 Sekolah Tinggi Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan Kristen Wamena, Papua, Indonesia 2 Faculty of Cultural Studies, Universitas Brawijaya, Malang, Indonesia 3 Faculty of Cultural Studies, Universitas Brawijaya, Malang, Indonesia E-mail : [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Abstract Papua is the eastern-most part of Indonesia, comprising the left half of the island of New Guinea. Lani is a group of people or tribe living in the mountains of Jayawijaya Papua, and they speak Lani language as their local language. The language used for formal purposes in Papua is Indonesian. However, many Lani people cannot speak Indonesian correctly. This study examined the phonological interference of Lani language on the spoken Indonesian of Lani native speakers in Malang. This research used descriptive qualitative with content analysis. The respondents were five native speakers of Lani living in Malang for less than a year. The 200 Swadesh wordlist (1971) was used to collect data of spoken Indonesian from the Lani native speakers to show the phonological interference of Lani on Indonesian. This research revealed two important findings: (1) the pronunciation of Indonesian words spoken by Lani native speakers was interfered with Lani phonological rules, in which the respondents tend to substitute the sounds of Indonesian which do not exist in Lani with Lani’s sounds, (2) the respondents intended to make the pronunciation of a second language (Indonesian) easier. This happened because they experienced difficulties in producing several phonemes of Indonesian not existing in Lani’s phonological system. Keywords: Lani, Indonesian, phonological interference 1. Introduction [ʤaŋan] is pronounced as [jaŋan]. The use of this interfering pronunciation may lead to confusion for Papua is the eastern-most part of Indonesia, the non-Lani audience. comprising the left half of the island of New There are some factors which affect the Guinea (Papua Info, 2019). The formal language occurrence of phonological interference. Fromkin, used in Papua is Indonesian. However, there are et.al. (2003) state that the cause of phonological 264 tribal languages used in Papua. Papua is a part interference is the different phonemes, of Indonesia and therefore Papuan people use phonological rules or syllable structures of the two Indonesian as a unifying language. As a result, languages. Papuans have to speak Indonesian as national The first aspect is the different phonemes language besides their first language. Indonesian is which refers to consonant inventories of Indonesian used all over Papua, starting from the coastal areas, and Lani language. In Indonesian, consonant lowlands, highlands, and isolated areas to the inventory is categorized into voiceless and voiced. Central Highlands of Papua. Not only that, as Meanwhile, Lani consonant inventory has a‘lingua franca’ in Papua, Indonesian is now an prenasalized voice. effective language among various tribes in the region. In fact, its influence has almost led to the Substitution lesser use of local languages in Papua (Howay, J, This is interference that is brought about as a 2012). result of self-substitution for the phonemes of the One of the local languages spoken in Papua is target language to suit their first language structure. Lani language. Lani is one of the major tribes or Galandanci (2000) affirms such occurrence is large groups in Papua. Lani languages are widely because the target language phoneme is absent in used in the mountains of Jayawijaya. Some of the the first language. phonological interference in Indonesian by Lani native speakers that can be observed from daily Elision/ Deletion interaction are the change of sound [f] and [v] into Deletion is a removal of a constituent; in this [p] and sound [ʤ] into [j]. For instance, the word case, the deletion of a speech sound. Moreover, [provinsi] is pronounced [propinsi], and the word deletion may also occur to a phoneme which is not 17 © 2020 Jurnal Budaya FIB UB Jurnal Budaya, Vol. 1 No. 1, Agustus 2020, pp 17-21 Tabuni et al allowed to appear in certain position. In Lani 3. Results language, deletion may occur in consonant cluster. Lani does not permit consonant clusters within the This sub-chapter presents the data from 200 syllable. This results in simplification of consonant Swadesh wordlist of Indonesian spoken by Lani cluster in Lani and the first or second consonants in native speakers in Malang. The data were extracted the cluster has to be deleted to break it. from recorded video of respondents and analyzed It is necessary to investigate the extent to in order to reveal the interference of Lani toward which language interference occurs from Lani to Indonesian. The respondents read out loud all 200 Indonesian. This study investigated Lani words in the list with normal speed reading. The phonological interference on Indonesian as a authors found 64 words of Indonesian were second language. The research focused on Lani’s interfered with the phonology of Lani. The words phonological rules which interfere in the use of are listed in the following table. Indonesian as second language by native speakers of Lani. Table 1. The Findings of Interference of Lani on To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no Indonesian previous study has been done to discuss the interference of Lani’s phonemes on Indonesian. A previous study conducted by Bromley (1961) compared dialects of Dani language in Papua on the basis of phonemic patterns of structurally relevant contrasts. Therefore, this study addressed the interference of Lani’s phonological features on Indonesian as second language by native speakers of Lani. 2. Method The descriptive qualitative approach was employed in this study. There was a large population of Papuans in Malang that could be taken as the participants for this study. In this case, the population of this study was Lani native speakers who were undergraduate students in Malang. The authors selected five Lani native speakers who speak Indonesian to represent other Lani’s native speakers. The sample was chosen because the research did not necessarily suggest random sampling or selection of a large number of participants, as typically found in quantitative research (Creswell, 2009). There were 5 (five) participants used in this study because there were only a small number of Lani native speakers fulfilling the criteria set for this study. The criteria were as follows. First, the place of origin of the participants were from Lani’s remote areas. Second, the participants used Lani in most of the domains in their life and were not exposed to environments which used Indonesian heavily before coming to Malang. Third, the participants were in their first year in Malang universities. The participant’ status as students was required in this study because they had to use Indonesian actively in Malang to study in the universities and to interact with the society. Their ability to speak Indonesian could be used to investigate the interference of Lani language on Indonesian. The data was collected by asking the participants to read the 200 Swadesh wordlist. 18 Jurnal Budaya, Vol. 1 No. 1, Agustus 2020, pp 17-21 Tabuni et al No Standard Transcription Pronunciation of Phonemes Respondents Indonesian Lani speakers Interfered 1 Air [aɪr] [aɛ] [aɪ] is replaced 4 [aɪ] is not a Lani’s phoneme [aɛ] is not a Lani’s by [aɛ] phoneme 2 Besar [bəsar] [bəsat] [r] is replaced 2 [r] is not a Lani’s phoneme [t] is a Lani’s phoneme by [t] 3 Anjing [anʤiŋ] [anjiŋ] [ʤ] is replaced 5 [ʤ] is not a Lani’s phoneme [j] is not a Lani’s by [j] phoneme 4 Kuning [kuniŋ] [kunin] [ŋ] is replaced 5 [ŋ] is not a Lani’s phoneme [n] is a Lani’s by [n] phoneme 5 Bunga [buŋa] [buŋɡa] [ŋ] is replaced 4 [ŋ] is not a Lani’s phoneme [ŋɡ] is a Lani’s by [ŋɡ] phoneme 6 Daging [dagiŋ] [daŋiŋ] [g] is replaced 4 [g] is not a Lani’s phoneme [ŋ] is not a Lani’s by [ŋ] phoneme 7 Pohon [pohon] [pɔ’ɔn] [h] is 5 [h] is not a Lani’s phoneme pronounced silent 8 Rambut [rambut] [ramput] [b] is replaced 3 [b] is not a Lani’s phoneme [p] is a Lani’s by [p] phoneme 9 Di [di] [ndi] [d] is replaced 2 [d] is not a Lani’s phoneme [nd] is a Lani’s by [nd] phoneme 10 Bulan [bulan] [bulaŋ] [n] is replaced 1 [n] is a Lani’s phoneme [ŋ] is not a Lani’s by [ŋ] phoneme 11 Infrastruktur [infrastruktur] [inprastruktur] [f] is replaced 1 [f] is not a Lani’s phoneme [p] is a Lani’s by [p] phoneme 12 Bergaul [bǝrgaul] [ᵐbǝrgaul] [b] is replaced 1 [b] is not a Lani’s phoneme [ᵐb] is a Lani’s by [ᵐb] phoneme 13 Aktivitas [aktivitas] [aktipitas] [v] is replaced 2 [v] is not a Lani’s phoneme [p] is a Lani’s by [p] phoneme 14 Cukup [ʧukup] [sukup] [ʧ] is replaced 1 [ʧ] is not a Lani’s phoneme [s] is not a Lani’s by [s] phoneme The sound of Indonesian can also be deleted Table 1 presents the orthography of Indonesian by Lani speakers when the sound does not exist in words, their transcription, the pronunciation of Lani’s phonology. For instance, the voiceless these words by the respondents (Lani native glottal fricative [h] exists in Indonesian but it does speakers), and the detail of the phoneme not exist in Lani’s phonology. The word pohon substitution. It can be seen from Table 1 that the [pohon] was pronounced [pɔ’ɔn].