West Damar language

Last updated
West Damar
North Damar
Damar Batumerah
Native to Indonesia
Region Maluku Islands
Native speakers
(800 cited 1987) [1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3 drn
Glottolog west2548

West Damar, or North Damar, is an Austronesian language of Damar Island, one of the Maluku Islands of Indonesia. In spite of rather low cognacy rates with its neighboring languages, [2] it can be classified as part of the Babar languages based on qualitative evidence. [3]

Contents

It is only spoken in the village of Batumerah, [4] located on the north-western part of Damar.

Vocabulary

Vocabulary list: [4]

West Damar Indonesian English
odosayaI
edeengkauyou (sing.)
ididiahe, she
ititokitawe (incl.)
odomokamiwe (exc.)
edmikamuyou (pl.)
idiromerekathey
mehnosatuone
wyeruduatwo
wyettelitigathree
wyotoempatfour
wilimolimafive
wyenamoenamsix
wititujuhseven
waydelapaneight
wisisembilannine
uswutisepuluhten
ulkonakepalahead
limatanganhand
eyakakifoot

Sample sentences

Ede mpondai? - Are you ill?

E’e, odo ulkonacheni nchepondo. - Yes, I have a headache.

Wohleyo Binayani idihe hulchupondeheti wohleyo Ahehendini - The mountain Binaya is the highest at the Seram island.

See also

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References

  1. West Damar at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. Mark Taber. 1993. Toward a better understanding of the Indigenous Languages of Southwestern Maluku. Oceanic Linguistics 32. 389-441.
  3. 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.
  4. 1 2 "West Damar Language or Damar-Batumerah, an Isolate in South-Eastern Indonesia" (PDF). 2015-05-12. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-05-12. Retrieved 2020-07-04.

Further reading