The Bunak language (also known as Bunaq, Buna', Bunake, pronounced ) is the language of the Bunak people of the mountainous region of central

Timor Timor is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, in the north of the Timor Sea. The island is divided between the sovereign states of East Timor on the eastern part and Indonesia on the western part. The Indonesian part, ...

, split between the political boundary between

West Timor West Timor ( id, Timor Barat) is an area covering the western part of the island of Timor, except for the district of Oecussi-Ambeno (an East Timorese exclave). Administratively, West Timor is part of East Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia. The ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...

, particularly in Lamaknen District and

East Timor East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-w ...

. It is one of the few on Timor which is not an Austronesian language, but rather a

Papuan language The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian and non- Australian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands, by around 4 million people. It is a strictly ge ...

of the Timor-Alor-Pantar language family. The language is surrounded by

Malayo-Polynesian languages The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. The Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken by the Austronesian peoples outside of Taiwan, in the island nations of Southeast ...

, like

Uab Meto Uab Meto or Dawan is an Austronesian language spoken by Atoni people of West Timor. The language has a variant spoken in the East Timorese exclave of Oecussi-Ambeno, called Baikenu. Baikenu uses words derived from Portuguese, for example, ''o ...

and

Tetum , nativename=Tetun , states= Indonesia East Timor , speakers=, mostly in Indonesia , date=2010–2011 , ref=e18 , speakers2=50,000 L2-speakers in Indonesia and East Timor , familycolor=Austronesian , fam2=Malayo-Polynesian , fam3= Central–East ...

. Bunak distinguishes between animate and inanimate noun classes.

Phonology

* Plosive sounds /p t k/ can be heard as unreleased allophones ̚ t̚ k̚ in word-final position. * Sounds /b d ɡ/ can be heard as � r ɣin intervocalic positions. * /ɡ/ can be heard as ʒwhen preceding /i/. * /z/ can have allophones � dʒin free variation. * /tʃ/ is heard as when preceding /i/. * /l/ in word-final position can also be heard as a fricative �in free variation. Schapper (2009).

Pronouns

Pronouns seem to tie Bunak more closely to the Alor–Pantar languages, in a group Ross (2005) calls "West Timor", than with the Papuan

East Timor languages East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fa ...

. The independent pronouns and object prefixes, which appear to retain the proto-Trans–New Guinea dual suffix *-li, are as follows:

Notes

References

* * * *

External links

* ELAR archive o
Zapal, an oral literature genre of the Bunaq Lamaknen
* Timothy Usher, New Guinea World
Bunaq
Languages of Indonesia Languages of East Timor Timor–Alor–Pantar languages {{TNG-lang-stub