Batuley (Gwatle lir) is a language spoken on the
Aru Islands
The Aru Islands Regency ( id, Kabupaten Kepulauan Aru) is a group of about 95 low-lying islands in the Maluku Islands of eastern Indonesia. It also forms a regency of Maluku Province, with a land area of . At the 2011 Census the Regency had a p ...
of eastern Indonesia. It is close to
Mariri
is a special type of phlegm generated by shamans and sorcerers of the Peruvian Amazon Basin which is believed to contain the essence of their power in the form of , , darts, arrows, or splinters of bone that are believed to be contained in the p ...
; Hughes (1987) estimates that around 80% of lexical items are shared. The language's name comes from the Gwatle island (Batuley in Indonesian), which the Batuley consider their homeland (Daigle (2015)).
Geographical distribution
Batuley is spoken in eastern Indonesia across seven villages that Daigle (2015) lists in his thesis. Some of them are
Kabalsiang on
Aduar Island,
Kumul
Hami (Kumul) is a prefecture-level city in Eastern Xinjiang, China. It is well known as the home of sweet Hami melons. In early 2016, the former Hami county-level city was merged with Hami Prefecture to form the Hami prefecture-level city with t ...
in the identically-named island, and Gwaria (Waria) in the Island of
Gwari
Gbagyi or Gbari (plural - Agbagyi/Agbari) is the name and the language of Gbagyi/Gbari ethnic group who are predominantly found in Central Nigeria, with a population of about 1 million people. Members of the ethnic group speak two dialects. While ...
.
Phonology
Vowels
Batuley has a simple five-vowel system with no vowel length distinction (Daigle 2015).
*i
*e
*u
*o
*a
is an allophone of and (in different environments). is an allophone of when it does not receive the primary stress. Furthermore, and may both be reduced to a schwa in fast speech in certain conditions.
Consonants
Daigle (2015)
Lexicon
Daigle (2015)
* : water, fresh water
* : island
* : sister; branch
* : big house
* : wood, tree
* : chest, breast
* : breast milk (: breast, : its water)
* : scorpion
* : small fresh-water turtle
* : cloud
* : dance (n)
* : month
* : shoe (borrowing)
* : diesel fuel (borrowing)
* : zero (borrowing)
* : think (borrowing)
* : cat (borrowing)
* : teacher (borrowing)
* : paper (borrowing)
* : crack, split (borrowing)
* : hat (borrowing)
* : older sibling (borrowing)
* : year (borrowing)
* : book (borrowing)
References
Further reading
*
Aru languages
Languages of Indonesia
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