The Pesisir people are descendants of the Minangkabau who migrated to Tapanuli from present-day West Sumatra in the 14th century and intermingled with other ethnic groups, including the Bataks and Acehnese.
This role can be seen in many aspects of their lives, such as activities in the market, greetings, working on the beach and at sea, visiting, joking, and playing.
Speakers of Malayic languages are spread from Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Southern Thailand, to the southernmost part of the Philippines.
Malagasy, a geographic outlier spoken in Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, is also a member of this language family.
In more conservative languages like Malay, many roots have come with relatively little change from their common ancestor, Proto-Austronesian.
There are many cognates found in the languages' words for kinship, health, body parts and common animals.
Its geographical range overlaps with that of the Toba Batak and Mandailing languages, which are also widely spoken in these regions.
However, in general, the people of Sibolga are usually able to speak both the Pesisir language and Batak, in addition to Indonesian.
[11] In Sibolga and the surrounding regions, the Pesisir language holds a vital role in everyday social interactions, evident across numerous aspects of community life.
This widespread use reflects the language's importance in maintaining social cohesion and cultural identity within the Pesisir community.
In Sibolga, no schools currently use the Pesisir language as a medium of instruction, whether in spoken or written form.
The lack of educational materials, such as books and other learning resources in the Pesisir language, is a significant barrier.
This situation is closely linked to the limited number of teachers and students proficient in the Pesisir language.
[3][14] The differences between these dialects primarily lie in their phonology, while their grammar and lexicon remain largely identical.
The Sibolga dialect is widely regarded as the prestige variety of the Pesisir language due to its extensive documentation, frequent use in formal settings, and active promotion in both academic and cultural contexts.
[17] Affricate Notes: In writing, the following phonemes are represented as thus: The Pesisir language features twelve diphthongs, typically found at the end of words: /ai̯/, /au̯/, /ae̯/, /iu̯/, /ia̯/, /uo̯/, /ua̯/, /ei̯/, /io̯/, /eo̯/, /ie̯/ and /ui̯/.
Its sentence structure generally follows a subject-verb-object (SVO) order, a pattern commonly observed in many Indonesian languages.
[19] While there are some notable exceptions, the grammar structure of the Pesisir language shares many similarities with Indonesian and Malay.
Example of prefixes commonly found in the Pesisir language are ma-, pa-, ta-, di-, ba-, and sa-.
The meaning of the prefix ba- includes "to have," "to perform an action," "to use a title or form of address," or "to indicate unity (togetherness)."
The meanings associated with this reduplication include "using as a form of address or utilizing," "performing actions repeatedly," or "very."
Examples include: Compound words in the Pesisir language can be analyzed from two perspectives: their constituent elements and the meaning they convey.
[30] The table below provides examples of common Pesisir vocabulary used on a daily basis along with their Standard Minangkabau, Indonesian, and English translations.