Makalero or Maklere is 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 geogra ...

spoken in the Lautém district of

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-weste ...

. It was previously considered to be a dialect of

Makasae Makasae (also known as Makassai, Macassai, Ma'asae, Makasai) is a Papuan language spoken by about 100,000 people in the eastern part of East Timor, in the districts of Baucau and Viqueque, just to the west of Fataluku. It is the most widely spok ...

, but is nowadays seen as a separate language, both by its speakers and linguists.

Phonology

The data in this section are from Huber (2017).

Consonants

Makalero has 11 native consonant phonemes.

Vowels

Monophthongs

Makalero has five vowel phonemes. Most long vowels occur in predictable contexts; thus Huber argues long vowels are marginal phonemes at best. Syllables are commonly CV; some are CVC. Epenthetic vowels are often inserted between series of two consonants, and echo vowels are often added to the end of phonological phrases.

Grammar

All information in this section is from Huber 2011.

Lexical Categories

Makalero does not have a definitive noun/verb distinction. Nearly all content words can be heads of NPs as well as predicates. In the following examples, ''isit'' can be a predicate or a nominal. : : Content words must be bimoraic, unlike function words, which may be monomoraic.

Valency

Makalero has only avalent verbs and divalent verbs. There are no trivalent verbs; instead, biclausal constructions are used. The avalent verbs are adverbial verbs such as ''atanana'' 'first,' ''hana’e'' 'a long time ago,' ''aire’'' 'now,' ''kamunei'' 'tomorrow,' ''mu’it'' 'for a long time,' ''raine’'' 'last night,' and ''tone’'' 'maybe.' Divalent verbs allow for a subject and either an object or complement. In the following example, ''Kiloo'' is the subject and ''ani'' is the object. : In the following example, ''ani'' is the subject and ''rau-rau'' is the complement. :

Numerals

*unu - One *loloi - Two *lolitu - Three *faata - Four *lima - Five *douhu - Six *fitu - Seven *afo - Eight *siwa - Nine *ruru-u - Ten * ruu resi nu - Eleven * ruu resi loloi - Twelve * ruu resi lolitu - Thirteen * ruu resi faata - Fourteen * ruu resi lima - Fifteen

Notes

References

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External links

Makasai
at The Language Archive Oirata–Makasai languages Languages of East Timor Articles citing ISO change requests {{TNG-lang-stub