Counting in Sumbawa

Language overview

Sumbawa (basa Semawa) is an Austronesian language that belongs to the Malayo-Polynesian languages group, and more precisely to the Bali-Sasak-Sumbawa languages group. It is spoken in the western part of Sumbawa Island in Indonesia by the Sumbawa, or Samawa people. Sumbawa counts about 300,000 native speakers. It is written in Latin alphabet, but also in the Satera Jontal variant of the Lontara script.

The Lontara script

The Lontara script is an Indonesian traditional script mostly used to write the Buginese language, but also Makassarese and Mandar, and, through closely-related variants, Bima, Ende, and Sumbawa.
Lontara is an abugida, which means it is an alphasyllabary where consonant-vowel sequences are written as units. It consists of 23 letters, each of them including the default inherent vowel /a/, like the other Brahmic scripts (ᨀ ka, ᨁ ga, ᨂ nga, ᨃ ngka…). Diacritics are used to change that vowel, like in this example: ᨊ na, ᨊᨗ ni, ᨊᨘ nu, ᨊᨙ né, ᨊᨚ no, and ᨊᨛ ne.
The word Lontara finds its origin in the Malay word for the palmyra palm, lontar. The leaves of this palm tree have been traditionally used for manuscripts in Indonesia.

Sumbawa numbering rules

Now that you’ve had a gist of the most useful numbers, let’s move to the writing rules for the tens, the compound numbers, and why not the hundreds, the thousands and beyond (if possible).

• Digits from one to nine are rendered by specific words, namely sópó’ (se- when prefixed, and sai when compound, or when used for counting up to a certain number) [1], dua [2], telu [3], empat [4], lima [5], enam [6], pitu’ [7], balu’ [8], and siwa’ [9].
• Tens are formed starting with the multiplier digit, linked with a hyphen to the word pulu: se-pulu [10], dua-pulu [20], telu-pulu [30], mpat-pulu [40], lima-pulu [50], enam-pulu [60], pitu-pulu [70], balu-pulu [80], and siwa-pulu [90].
• Numbers from eleven to nineteen are formed starting with the unit, linked with a hyphen to the word olas: s-olas (se- is elided in s-) [11], dua-olas [12], telu-olas [13], empat-olas [14], lima-olas [15], enam-olas [16], pitu-olas [17], balu-olas [18], and siwa-olas [19].
• Higher compound numbers are formed starting with the ten, then the unit linked with a hyphen (e.g.: dua-pulu-sai [21], telu-pulu-balu [38]).
• Hundreds are formed starting with the multiplier unit, linked with a hyphen to the word ratis: se-ratis [100], dua-ratis [200], telu-ratis [300], mpat-ratis [400], lima-ratis [500], enam-ratis [600], pitu-ratis [700], balu-ratis [800], and siwa-ratis [900].
• Thousands are formed starting with the multiplier unit, linked with a hyphen to the word ribu: se-ribu [1,000], dua-ribu [2,000], telu-ribu [3,000], mpat-ribu [4,000], lima-ribu [5,000], enam-ribu [6,000], pitu-ribu [7,000], balu-ribu [8,000], and siwa-ribu [9,000].
• Millions are formed starting with the multiplier unit, linked with a hyphen to the word juta (a loanword from the Indonesian): se-juta [1 million], dua-juta [2 million], telu-juta [3 million]…

Write a number in full in Sumbawa

Let’s move now to the practice of the numbering rules in Sumbawa. Will you guess how to write a number in full? Enter a number and try to write it down in your head, or maybe on a piece of paper, before displaying the result.

Books

Source

• Numerals in Sumbawa (pdf), by Asako Shioara, in Papers from 12-ICAL, Volume 1 (2014)

Western Malayo-Polynesian languages

Indonesian, Malagasy, Minangkabau, and Sumbawa.

Other supported languages

As the other currently supported languages are too numerous to list extensively here, please select a language from the full list of supported languages.