Helong language

Last updated

Helong
Native to Indonesia
Region West Timor
Native speakers
(14,000 cited 1997) [1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3 heg
Glottolog helo1243
ELP Helong
Location of the Helong Language in blue (Western Tip) Timor Sprache en.png
Location of the Helong Language in blue (Western Tip)

Helong (alternate names Helon, Kupang and Semau [1] ) is a Central Malayo-Polynesian language of West Timor. Speakers are interspersed with those of Amarasi. This language has become endangered as a result of its native speakers marrying those who do not speak Helong, and as a result of coming in contact with the outside community. [1] Helong speakers are found in four villages on the South-Western coast of West Timor, as well as on Semau Island, a small island just off the coast of West Timor. [2] The mostly Christian, slightly patriarchal society of Semau do their best to send their children away to Bali (or elsewhere) to earn money to send home.

Contents

Classification

Helong is an Austronesian language and belongs to its Malayo-Polynesian branch. The Endangered Languages Project has classified Helong as "vulnerable", based on the most recent data from 1997. [3] The largest threat to Helong is a dialect of Malay spoken in Kupang, called Kupang Malay, as the native Helong speakers often visit Kupang, and use that dialect when there. [2]

History

Helong was once the primary language spoken in Kupang, but the language has since fallen out of popularity, and is now used sparsely around Kupang, but mostly used on Semau Island just off the coast of Kupang. [4] In recent years, the people in Kupang have spoken a local dialect of Malay, resulting in Helong being largely forgotten by those who visit the capital city often. While the new language has left behind a lot of the region's history, experts believe that Helong speakers contain a vast wealth of knowledge around the past, specifically, the spreading of Atoni culture when the Dutch gave them weapons, which wiped out many of the other cultures that existed in West Timor, but leaving Helong traditions and culture widely intact. [5]

Grammar

Morphology

Helong word structure follows a standard C(C)V(C)V(C) (where (C) indicates that a consonant can appear here but does not have to) word structure. Additionally, there is always a consonant at the beginning of every non-clitic word. Ignoring suffixes, the last consonant in any word can only be a few things, the glottal or apical consonants found in the table in the Phonology section, with the exception of the letter d, which does not satisfy this rule. On the contrary, there are no such limits on the last vowel of a word, which can be any of the five. [2]

Syntax

Helong follows a VSO word order like the other languages closely related to it. [6] [2] Helong is similar to languages like Spanish when it comes to noun-adjective order. The noun will come before the adjective describing it in a sentence. For example, ana hmunan directly translates as 'child first', but refers to somebody's first child. However, unlike in Spanish, punctuation will only come at the end of a sentence. Like most languages, the first word of each sentence, as well as proper nouns are capitalized. [6] Helong uses negative modifiers to change the meaning of a sentence to the opposite. For example, "... parsai lo" means 'do not believe', with parsai meaning 'believe', and lo being a negative modifier. [6]

Writing system

Helong uses the same Latin script used in the majority of languages around the world. While Helong does not use the full 26-character ISO basic Latin alphabet, but contains 27 characters total, which can be seen in the Phonology section below. [6] [2] While most of Helong words are written in the same format as English words, one key difference is that when using modifiers such as plurals, distributive numerals, and frequencies, Helong uses Hyphens or Tildes to connect the base word to the modifier. [6]

For example, in the sentence "Tode-s dua~dua le halin nahi-s deken", tode means lay, so tode-s would refer to laying multiple things, as the -s indicates plurality. Dua is the number 'two', so dua~dua would translate to the English 'pair'.

Phonology

Helong has five vowels: /a,e,i,o,u/. [2] [6]

Consonants [2] [6]
Labial Alveolar Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ŋ
Stop voiceless p t k ʔ
voiced b d g
Fricative f s h
Approximant w l
Trill r

The palatal stops /c,ɟ/ and the voiced labio-velar approximant /w/ are marginal phonemes, only occurring in a few loanwords. [7]

Numbers

Numbers 1–30
1mesa11hngul esa21buk dua beas esa

or

buk dua-s esa

2dua12hngul dua22buk dua beas dua

or

buk dua-s dua

3tilu13hngul tilu23buk dua beas tilu

or

buk dua-s tilu

4aat14hngul aat24buk dua beas aat

or

buk dua-s aat

5lima15hngul lima25buk dua beas lima

or

buk dua-s lima

6eneng16hngul eneng26buk dua beas eneng

or

buk dua-s eneng

7itu17hngul itu27buk dua beas itu

or

buk dua-s itu

8palu18hngul palu28buk dua beas palu

or

buk dua-s palu

9sipa19hngul sipa29buk dua beas sipa

or

buk dua-s sipa

10hngulu20buk dua30buk tilu

The Helong language uses words for each base unit (i.e. tens, hundreds, thousands). For example, the number 27 could be said as "tens two ones seven", indicating a 2 in the tens column and a 7 in the ones column. [6]

Base Units
onesbeas
tensbuk
hundredsngatus
thousandslihu
millionsjuta

Ordinal numbers, with the exception of the word for first, simply add ke in front of the word for the number. Researchers have been unable to determine if ke is its own word, a prefix, or a proclitic. [6]

Ordinals
FirsthmunanSixthke eneng
Secondke duaSeventhke itu
Thirdke tiluEighthke palu
Fourthke aatNinthke sipa
Fifthke limaTenthke hngulu

Non-numeric quantity

Non-Numeric Quantity
manymamo, mamamo
alltoang, totang
many (crowded)hut, hutu
plenty (many lots)mamo kose
plenty (many big)mamo tene
too much (many excessive)mamo naseke
entire (complete)nuli
way too manyketang kaa to
none, nothingase
alone, by yourselfsii
eachmesa-mesa

ketang kaa to is a Helong idiom that translates directly as 'cockatoos eating seeds', which they use as a saying to describe way too many of a specific item. [6]

Examples

The following are example sentences of Helong: [6]

HelongLiteral TranslationActual Translation
Ni un ana ke lima la niaThis child fifth hersThis is her fifth child
Atuil at hngul dua na-s maa daek hulungpeople ten two come work helpThose twelve people came to help
Laok nui kit hmake salat duago pick (person and self) tamarind cluster twoLet's go pick two bunches of tamarind
Bingin tilu halas-sam oen pait maa-sday three just then 3 people return come-pluralIn three days then they will come back
Kaim daad lelo ila lo se la-ngwe stay day several at distant place (general)We stayed there for several days.
Oen tilu-s lii nasekepeople 3-plural frighten too muchThe three of them were very scared.
Minggua mesa-m oe duaweek one (pause) time twoTwo times in one week.
Lahin oen maa-s se ia-syesterday people come-plural at close placeYesterday they came here

Related Research Articles

Metathesis is the transposition of sounds or syllables in a word or of words in a sentence. Most commonly, it refers to the interchange of two or more contiguous segments or syllables, known as adjacent metathesis or local metathesis:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sundanese language</span> Language spoken in Indonesia

Sundanese is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken in Java, primarily by the Sundanese. It has approximately 32 million native speakers in the western third of Java; they represent about 15% of Indonesia's total population.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Balinese language</span> Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia

Balinese is an Austronesian language spoken on the Indonesian island of Bali, as well as Northern Nusa Penida, Western Lombok, Southern Sumatra, and Sulawesi. Most Balinese speakers also use Indonesian. The 2000 national census recorded 3.3 million people speakers of Balinese, however the Bali Cultural Agency estimated in 2011 that the number of people still using the Balinese language in their daily lives is under 1 million. The language has been classified as "not endangered" by Glottolog.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">South Bolivian Quechua</span> Dialect of Southern Quechua

South Bolivian Quechua, also known as Central Bolivian Quechua, is a dialect of Southern Quechua spoken in Bolivia and adjacent areas of Argentina, where it is also known as Colla. It is not to be confused with North Bolivian Quechua, which is spoken on the northern Andean slopes of Bolivia and is phonologically distinct from the South Bolivian variety. Estimates of the number of speakers of South Bolivian Quechua range from 2.3 to 2.8 million, making it the most spoken indigenous language in Bolivia, just slightly greater than Aymara, with roughly 2 million speakers in Bolivia. In comparison, the North Bolivian dialect has roughly 116,000 speakers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sasak language</span> Language spoken in Lombok, Indonesia

The Sasak language is spoken by the Sasak ethnic group, which make up the majority of the population of Lombok, an island in the West Nusa Tenggara province of Indonesia. It is closely related to the Balinese and Sumbawa languages spoken on adjacent islands, and is part of the Austronesian language family. Sasak has no official status; the national language, Indonesian, is the official and literary language in areas where Sasak is spoken.

Sa or Saa language is an Austronesian language spoken in southern Pentecost Island, Vanuatu. It had an estimated 2,500 speakers in the year 2000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Waimoa language</span> Malayo-Polynesian language spoken in northeast East Timor

Waimoa or Waimaʼa is a language spoken by about 27,000 people in northeast East Timor. Waimoa proper is reported to be mutually intelligible with neighboring Kairui and Midiki, which together have about 5,000 speakers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lampung language</span> Language in Indonesia

Lampung or Lampungic is an Austronesian language or dialect cluster with around 1.5 million native speakers, who primarily belong to the Lampung ethnic group of southern Sumatra, Indonesia. It is divided into two or three varieties: Lampung Api, Lampung Nyo, and Komering. The latter is sometimes included in Lampung Api, sometimes treated as an entirely separate language. Komering people see themselves as ethnically separate from, but related to, Lampung people.

The Wuvulu-Aua language is an Austronesian language which is spoken on the Wuvulu and Aua Islands and in the Manus Province of Papua New Guinea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Itawis language</span> Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines

Itawis is a Northern Philippine language spoken by the Itawis people, closely related to the Gaddang speech found in Isabela and Nueva Vizcaya. It also has many similarities to the neighboring Ibanag tongue, while remaining quite different from the prevalent Ilocano spoken in the region and the Tagalog-based Filipino national language.

Moken is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by inhabitants in southern Myanmar and Southern Thailand, who refer to themselves as Moken (people) and Mawken.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Enggano language</span> Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia

The Enggano language, or Engganese, is an Austronesian language spoken on Enggano Island off the southwestern coast of Sumatra, Indonesia.

Kupang Malay or simply the Kupang language is a Malay-based creole language spoken in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara, which is on the west end of Timor Island. Kupang Malay is presently used as a lingua franca for inter-ethnic communication, and it also has native speakers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hawu language</span> Austronesian language of the Savu people in Indonesia

The Hawu language is the language of the Savu people of Savu Island in Indonesia and of Raijua Island off the western tip of Savu. Hawu has been referred to by a variety of names such as Havu, Savu, Sabu, Sawu, and is known to outsiders as Savu or Sabu. Hawu belongs to the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family, and is most closely related to Dhao and the languages of Sumba. Dhao was once considered a dialect of Hawu, but the two languages are not mutually intelligible.

Grass Koiari (Koiali) is a Papuan language of Papua New Guinea spoken in the inland Port Moresby area. It is not very close to the other language which shares its name, Mountain Koiali. It is considered a threatened language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kerinci language</span> Malayic language spoken in Indonesia

The Kerinci language is an Austronesian language primarily spoken by the Kerinci people in Sungai Penuh, Kerinci Regency, and parts of Merangin and Bungo Regency in western Jambi, as well as several hamlets in Mukomuko Regency in Bengkulu. This language is also spoken by the Kerinci diaspora in other regions of Indonesia, such as West Sumatra and Java; as well as outside Indonesia, such as in Negeri Sembilan and Selangor in Malaysia. The total number of Kerinci language speakers is estimated to be around 250,000 in 2000. As an Austronesian language from the Malayo-Polynesian sub-group, the Kerinci language is also closely related to the Minangkabau and Jambi Malay languages spoken in neighboring regions.

Belait, or Lemeting, is a Malayo-Polynesian language of Brunei and neighbouring Malaysia. It is spoken by the Belait people who mainly reside in the Bruneian Belait District. There were estimated to be 700 speakers in 1995.

Nuaulu is a language indigenous to the island of Seram Island in Indonesia, and it is spoken by the Nuaulu people. The language is split into two dialects, a northern and a southern dialect, between which there a communication barrier. The dialect of Nuaulu referred to on this page is the southern dialect, as described in Bolton 1991.

Wamesa is an Austronesian language of Indonesian New Guinea, spoken across the neck of the Doberai Peninsula or Bird's Head. There are currently 5,000–8,000 speakers. While it was historically used as a lingua franca, it is currently considered an under-documented, endangered language. This means that fewer and fewer children have an active command of Wamesa. Instead, Papuan Malay has become increasingly dominant in the area.

Amarasi is a Central Malayo-Polynesian language of West Timor, and is spoken by the Amarasi. The Amarasi language has about 80,000 native speakers, with four main dialects called Ro'is, Kotos, Tais Nonof, and Ketun, though many differences exist between individual villages. Speakers are interspersed with those of Helong.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Helong at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed Access logo transparent.svg
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Steinhauer, Hein. "Synchronic Metathesis and Apocope in Three Austronesian Languages of the Timor Area" (PDF). In Premsrirat, Suwilai (ed.). The Fourth International Symposium on Language and Linguistics. pp. 471–493. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 June 2015. Retrieved 5 July 2024.
  3. "Did you know Helong is vulnerable?". Endangered Languages. Retrieved 8 March 2017.
  4. Bowden, John Metathesis in Helong 2010. Presentation. Accessed 2017-04-26[ full citation needed ]
  5. Fox, James T.; Soares, Dionisio Babo, eds. (2003). Out of the Ashes: Destruction and Reconstruction of East Timor. ANU Press. doi: 10.22459/OA.11.2003 . ISBN   0-9751229-1-6 . Retrieved 26 April 2017.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Klamer, Marian; Kratochvíl, František, eds. (2014). Number and quantity in East Nusantara (PDF). hdl: 1885/11917 . Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 April 2018. Retrieved 2 March 2017.
  7. Balle, Misriani (2017). "Phonological Sketch of Helong, an Austronesian Language of Timor". Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society. 10 (1): 91–103. hdl: 10524/52399 .