West Damar, or ''North Damar'', is an
Austronesian language of
Damar Island
Damer, or Damar, ( id, Pulau Damer) is a small volcanic island in the Barat Daya Islands group in Indonesia's Maluku province, on the southern side of the Banda Sea. It is flanked by four smaller islands - one to the east, one to the west and tw ...
, one of the
Maluku Islands
The Maluku Islands (; Indonesian: ''Kepulauan Maluku'') or the Moluccas () are an archipelago in the east of Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located eas ...
of Indonesia. In spite of rather low cognacy rates with its neighboring languages, it can be classified as part of the
Babar languages
The Babar languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian language family spoken on the Babar Islands
The Babar Islands ''(''Indonesian: ''Kepulauan Babar)'' are located in Maluku Province, Indonesia between latitudes 7 degrees 31 minutes South t ...
based on qualitative evidence.
[Aone van Engelenhoven. 2010. Tentatively locating West-Damar among the languages of Southwest Maluku. In Chlenova, Svetlana and Fedorchuk, Artem (eds.), ''Studia Anthropologica: a Festschrift in Honor of Michael Chlenov'', 297-326. Moscow-Jerusalem: Gesharim.]
It is only spoken in the village of
Batumerah,
located on the north-western part of Damar.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary list:
Sample sentences
- Are you ill?
- Yes, I have a headache.
- The mountain
Binaya is the highest at the Seram island.
See also
*
East Damar language
References
Further reading
*Michael Chlenov & Svetlana Chlenova, 2006. "West Damar language or Damar-Batumerah, an isolate in South-Eastern Indonesia." ''Tenth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics,'' 17–20 January 2006, Palawan, Philippine
Babar languages
Languages of the Maluku Islands
{{au-lang-stub