| Sigulai | |
| Nativename: | Dau Batu[1] |
| States: | Indonesia |
| Region: | Simeulue, Aceh |
| Speakers: | 20,000 |
| Date: | no date |
| Ref: | e16 |
| Familycolor: | Austronesian |
| Fam2: | Malayo-Polynesian |
| Fam3: | Northwest Sumatra–Barrier Islands |
| Fam4: | Northern Barrier Islands |
| Fam5: | Nias–Sikule |
| Iso3: | skh |
| Glotto: | siku1242 |
| Glottorefname: | Sikule |
The Sigulai language (also called Sibigo, Sikule, Ageumeui, or Wali Banuah) is an Austronesian language spoken on Simeulue island off the western coast of Sumatra in Indonesia. It belongs to the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian languages. Sikule is one of Northwest Sumatra–Barrier Islands languages, which are a sub-group of Western Malayo-Polynesian.[2]
Sikule is spoken in Salang, Alafan and Simeulue Barat district, on the northern of Simeulue island. It is apparently related to the Nias language.[3] Ethnologue lists Lekon and Tapah as dialects.
Simeulue is spoken in the rest of Simeulue outside of Alafan, while Jamu (also called Kamano), related to Minangkabau, is spoken in the capital city of Sinabang.
The vowel and consonant phonemes of Sikule are shown in the tables below.[4]
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |
| Mid | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |
| Open | pronounced as /ink/ |
| +Sikule consonant phonemes | Labial | Alveolar | Post-alveolar/ Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||
| Plosive/ Affricate | voiceless | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | (pronounced as /ink/) | |
| voiced | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||
| Fricative | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||
| Approximant | central | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||
| lateral | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||||
| Trill | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||||