Uab Meto or Dawan is an
Austronesian language spoken by
Atoni
The Atoni (also known as the Atoin Meto, Atoin Pah Meto or Dawan) people are an ethnic group on Timor, in Indonesian West Timor and the East Timorese enclave of Oecussi-Ambeno. They number around 844,030. Their language is Uab Meto.
The Atoni ...
people of
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 ...
. The language has a variant spoken in the
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 ...
ese exclave of
Oecussi-Ambeno
Oecusse (also variously ''Oecussi'', ''Ocussi'', ''Oekussi'', ''Oekusi'', ''Okusi'', ''Oé-Cusse''), also known as Oecusse-Ambeno (; ) and formerly just Ambeno, officially the Special Administrative Region Oecusse-Ambeno (), is an exclave, mun ...
, called Baikenu. Baikenu uses words derived from
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
, for example, ''obrigadu'' for "thank you", instead of the
Indonesian ''terima kasih''.
Phonology
Dawan has the following consonants and vowels:
Voiceless plosives
t kcan have unreleased allophones
̚ t̚ k̚in word-final position. A phonemic /r/ can be heard in place of /l/ among dialects.
Vocabulary
A wordlist of 200 basic vocabulary items is available at the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database, with data provided by
Robert Blust
Robert A. Blust (; ; May 9, 1940 – January 5, 2022) was an American linguist who worked in several areas, including historical linguistics, lexicography and ethnology. He was Professor of Linguistics at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa. Blu ...
and from Edwards (2016).
Numbers
See also
*
Languages of Indonesia
More than 700 living languages are spoken in Indonesia. These figures indicate that Indonesia has about 10% of the world's languages, establishing its reputation as the second most linguistically diverse nation in the world after Papua New Guin ...
*
Languages of East Timor
The languages of East Timor include both Austronesian and Papuan languages. (See Timor–Flores languages and Timor–Alor–Pantar languages.) The lingua franca and national language of East Timor is Tetum, an Austronesian language influenced ...
References
Further reading
*
*
*
External links
Uab Meto SiteUab Meto ResourcesIndonesian – English – Uab Meto Dictionary
Languages of Indonesia
Languages of East Timor
Timor–Babar languages
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