Bima language
# Bima language

The Bima language, or Bimanese (Bima: Nggahi Mbojo, Indonesian: Bahasa Bima), is an Austronesian language spoken on the eastern half of Sumbawa Island, Indonesia, which it shares with speakers of the Sumbawa language. Bima territory includes the Sanggar Peninsula, 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.

## 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

Bima is primarily spoken on the eastern half of Sumbawa Island in Indonesia. It also spoken in the Banta, Sangeang, and Komodo islands.

## Dialects

According to Ethnologue, dialects of the language include Kolo, Sangar (Sanggar), Toloweri, Bima, and Mbojo.

Donggo, spoken in mountainous regions to the west of Bima Bay, such as in Doro Ntika of the Doro Oromboha area, is closely related to the main dialect of Bima. 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 phonemes :

| | | Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal |
| - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Nasal | Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |
| Plosive/ Affricate | voiceless | p | t | tʃ | k | ʔ |
| Plosive/ Affricate | voiced | b | d | dʒ | ɡ | |
| Plosive/ Affricate | implosive | ɓ | ɗ | | | |
| Fricative | Fricative | f | s | | | h |
| Lateral | Lateral | | l | | | |
| Trill | Trill | | r | | | |
| Approximant | Approximant | w | | j | | |

### Vowels

Vowel phonemes :

| | Front | Central | Back |
| - | - | - | - |
| Close | i | | u |
| Mid | e | | o |
| Open | | a | |

Vowels /i e o u/ can have shortened allophones as [ɪ ɛ ɔ ʊ].

