Wetarese language
| Wetarese | |
|---|---|
| Wetar | |
| Tutunohan | |
| Native to | Indonesia |
| Region | Wetar Island |
Native speakers | (11,000 cited 1990–2010)[1] |
Austronesian
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Variously:apx – Aputaiilu – Iliʼuunwet – Peraitzn – Tugun |
| Glottolog | weta1245 |
| ELP | Aputai |
Wetarese is an Austronesian language of Wetar, an island in the south Maluku, Indonesia, and of the nearby island Liran.[2]
Background
The four identified principal varieties of Wetarese on Wetar – Aputai, Iliʼuun, Perai and Tugun – are distinct enough that some may consider them to be different languages.
Wetarese is closely related to Galoli (spoken on the north coast of East Timor and by an immigrant community on the south coast of Wetar) and to Atauran (spoken on Atauro island).
Phonology
The following represents the Tugun dialect:[3]
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | tʃ | k | ʔ |
| voiced | dʒ | ɡ | ||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | h | ||
| voiced | v | |||||
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||
| Tap/Trill | ɾ ~ r | |||||
| Lateral | l | |||||
- /v/ may also be heard as [w] in free variation.[3]
- /r/ is mainly heard as [r] in word-final position or in slower speech, it is heard as [ɾ] elsewhere.[3]
- /ʔ/ only occurs in word-medial positions.[3]
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Close-mid | e | o | |
| Open | a |
- Sounds /e u/ are also heard as [ɛ ʊ].[3]
Citations
- ^ Aputai at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
Iliʼuun at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
Perai at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
Tugun at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required) - ^ Hull, Geoffrey (2002), The Languages of East Timor: Some Basic Facts (PDF), Instituto Nacional de Linguística, Universidade Nacional de Timor Lorosa'e
- ^ a b c d e f g Hinton (2000), p. 115
References
- Hinton, Bryan D. (2000). "The languages of Wetar: recent survey results and word lists with notes on Tugun grammar". In Grimes, Charles E. (ed.). Spices from the East: Papers in Languages of Eastern Indonesia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. pp. 105–129. doi:10.15144/PL-503.105. hdl:1885/146101.