ABSTRACT

A member of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of Austronesian, Buginese (also known as Bugis) is spoken by about 4 million people in Southern Sulawesi (Celebes). Originally Buddhist, the Buginese were converted to Islam, along with the Macassarese, in the seventeenth century. The ethnonym is (w)ugi’ or to.ugi’ (to < tau ‘man’) ; the language is basa (w)ugi’.