1.2.5. Ratahan

Ratahan (Rth) is spoken in the south of Minahasa, in the town of Ratahan and
about a dozen surrounding villages, from Pangu in the north to Molompar in the
west and eastward to the coast. There are cibout twenty thousand speakers.

Ratahan is usually referred to as Bentenan, after the coastal village of that
name, in earlier literature, e.g. by Niemann (1859-70) , Adriani (1925) and Esser
(1938) .

The name Pasan is sometimes also used in Minahasa to denote the Ratahan
language. This may represent a separate dialect; Jansen (1855) provides separate
lists for 'Pasan' and 'Ratahan' which show a few minor differences. However, the
two names are usually used interchangeably, although Ratahan is the common neime.

Previous study of Rth has been slight. Apart from Jansen's list of 150
words there is the more extensive list of Niemann. Both lists suffer from
unreliable spelling and some mistranslations. Koorders (1898) gives some useful
information on names of plants and trees. A few comments, along with a lexico-
statistics wordlist, are provided by Sneddon (1970).

Most of the material for the present study was obtained from informants in
the village of Pangu.

PACIFIC LINGUISTICS
Series B - No. 91

PROTO-SANGIRIC AND THE SANGIRIC LANGUAGES

by
J.N. Sneddon

Department of Linguistics
Research School of Pacific Studies
THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY
Copyright © The Author
First Published 1984

Typeset by Jeanette Coombes Printed by A.N.U. Printing Service

Bound by Adriatic Bookbinders Pty. Ltd.

The editors are indebted to the Australian National University for assistance in

the production of this series.

This publication was made possible by an initial grant from the Hunter Douglas

Fund.

National Library of Australia Card Number and ISBN 85883 306 9