Western Pantar language

Last updated
Western Pantar
Native to Indonesia
Region Nusa Tenggara Timur
Native speakers
10,300 (2014) [1]
Dialects
  • Lamma
  • Mauta
  • Tubbe
Language codes
ISO 639-3 lev
Glottolog lamm1241
ELP Western Pantar
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Western Pantar speaker and linguist Mahalalel Lamma Koly Western Pantar speaker.jpg
Western Pantar speaker and linguist Mahalalel Lamma Koly

Western Pantar, sometimes referred to by the name of one of its dialects, Lamma, is a Papuan language spoken in the western part of Pantar island in the Alor archipelago of Indonesia. Western Pantar is spoken widely in the region by about 10,000 speakers. Although speakers often use Malay in political, religious, and educational contexts, Western Pantar remains the first language of children of the region, and is acquired to some extent by immigrants.

Contents

Dialects

There are three primary dialects.

Dialect differences are primarily lexical: [2]

TubbeMautaLamma 
bisbissalepi‘mat’
hawerihaweribana‘many’
kallakallakisang‘small’
karanikaranisinnal‘Canarium sp.’
saihobahobi‘quiver’

Phonology

Consonants

The Western Pantar consonant inventory includes: voiced and voiceless stops /p t k ’/ and /b d g/; voiceless fricatives /s h/; nasals /n m ng/; trill /r/ and lateral /l/; and glides/w/ and /j/.

Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Plosive voiceless p t k ʔ ⟨'⟩
voiced b d g
Fricative s h
Nasal m n ŋ ⟨ng⟩
Approximant l j ⟨y⟩ w
Trill r

The glottal fricative /h/ is very lightly articulated. It occurs in both word-initial and word-medial positions. Words which begin with a glottal fricative can be difficult to distinguish from vowel-initial forms, which actually begin with a glottal stop.

ai ‘clothing louse’hai ‘boat’
ar ‘root’har ‘for you’
abbang ‘shake’habbang ‘village’

Consonants /ptkbdɡsmnl/ contrast in length with longer (geminate) counterparts (written double).

duba ‘slippery’dubba ‘push’
dake ‘now’dakke ‘dry pandanus’
dala ‘ripe’dalla ‘tomorrow’
asi ‘roof thatch’assi ‘bite you’
wenang ‘old man’wannang ‘near’

Vowels

The Western Pantar vowel system is a five-vowel system /ieaou/. /e/ may be heard varying from [e] to [ɛ], and /a/ may be heard as either [ä], [ɐ] or [ə].

Numbers

Classification

Western Pantar and the other non-Austronesian languages of Alor and Pantar comprise the Alor–Pantar language family. [3] This family is often itself included within the Timor–Alor–Pantar family, a larger grouping which includes some (though perhaps not all) of the non-Austronesian languages of Timor Island.

The TAP group is clearly Papuan (i.e., non-Austronesian), but just how it is related to the 20 or so families which fall under the rubric Papuan is unclear. Located some 1000 km from their nearest Papuan neighbor on the New Guinea mainland, the TAP family is the most distant Papuan outlier. In contrast, the other well-known outlier, the North Halmaheran subgroup of the West Papuan family, lies a mere 300 km from its nearest Papuan neighbor, and its genetic affiliation is well established.

Based on an examination of possessive prefixes, Capell (1944) originally postulated that the TAP languages were related to the West Papuan languages of North Maluku and the Bird's Head of New Guinea. [4] This hypothesis was later countered by Wurm et al. (1975), who classified the languages as members of the Trans–New Guinea family. [5] However, the authors offered little evidence for this classification and remained somewhat doubtful, noting, "whichever way they [the Timor–Alor–Pantar languages] are classified, they contain strong substratum elements of the other [families] involved" (Wurm et al. 1975:318). Indeed, substratum may play an important role in understanding the history of TAP languages. Ross (2005) assigns TAP to his West Trans–New Guinea linkage, a subgroup of Trans–New Guinea. [6] The evidence for this relies entirely on pronominal shapes, and yet there is significant variation in pronoun shapes in this linkage. TAP languages share some innovations/retentions with some members of the linkage, and other innovations/retentions with yet other different members of the linkage. For example, TAP languages retain *na as a reflex of pTNG first person singular *na, whereas several other members of the linkage show metathesis here. This kind of variation is to be expected, since by a "linkage" Ross means a dialect chain which has diversified in situ via overlapping innovations. More problematic is the correspondence of second and third person pronouns, an issue which is not addressed by Ross. TAP languages show a reversal of pTNG second and third pronouns, as can be seen comparing Ross's pTNG reconstructions with Nedebang pronouns.

Trans–New Guinea and Pantar pronouns
pTNGW Pantar
1SG*nanang
2SG*ŋgahaŋ
3SG*(ya)gaŋ

Western Pantar pronouns can only be derived from pTNG by a flip-flop in which second person pronouns trade places with third person, a typologically unusual situation. Recent work by Donohue & Schapper (2007) suggests that both Capell and Wurm may be right and that TAP may involve an overlay of both Trans–New Guinea and West Papuan elements. [7] Clearly, much more work is needed in order to unravel the complex linguistic pre-history of the TAP languages. One of the main stumbling blocks to further progress is the lack of adequate primary data from the individual languages in the Trans-New Guinea group, especially the languages of the Bomberai Peninsula.

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Papuan languages</span> Non-Austronesian languages of New Guinea and adjacent islands

The Papuan languages are the non-Austronesian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands in Indonesia, Solomon Islands, and East Timor. It is a strictly geographical grouping, and does not imply a genetic relationship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fataluku language</span> Papuan language of East Timor

Fataluku is a Papuan language spoken by approximately 37,000 people of Fataluku ethnicity in the eastern areas of East Timor, especially around Lospalos. It is a member of the Timor-Alor-Pantar language family, which includes languages spoken both in East Timor and nearby regions of Indonesia. Fataluku's closest relative is Oirata, spoken on Kisar island, in the Moluccas of Indonesia. Fataluku is given the status of a national language under the constitution. Speakers of Fataluku normally have a command of Tetum and/or Indonesian, those speakers who are educated under Portuguese rule or from younger generation educated under Portuguese-language educational system during independence speak Portuguese.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">West Papuan languages</span> Language family of Indonesia

The West Papuan languages are a proposed language family of about two dozen non-Austronesian languages of the Bird's Head Peninsula of far western New Guinea, the island of Halmahera and its vicinity, spoken by about 220,000 people in all. It is not established if they constitute a proper linguistic family or an areal network of genetically unrelated families.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eastern Trans-Fly languages</span> Language family of New Guinea

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bunak language</span> Papuan language spoken on Timor, Indonesia

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The Marind–Yaqai (Marind–Yakhai) languages are a well established language family of Papuan languages, spoken by the Marind-anim. They form part of the Trans–New Guinea languages in the classifications of Stephen Wurm and Malcolm Ross, and were established as part of the Anim branch of TNG by Timothy Usher.

The Pauwasi languages are a likely family of Papuan languages, mostly in Indonesia. The subfamilies are at best only distantly related. The best described Pauwasi language is Karkar, across the border in Papua New Guinea. They are spoken around the headwaters of the Pauwasi River in the Indonesian-PNG border region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mek languages</span> Trans–New Guinea language branch

The Mek languages are a well established family of Papuan languages spoken by the Mek people and Yali people. They form a branch of the Trans–New Guinea languages (TNG) in the classifications of Stephen Wurm (1975) and of Malcolm Ross (2005).

The Dani or Baliem Valley languages are a family of clearly related Trans–New Guinea languages spoken by the Dani and related peoples in the Baliem Valley in the Highland Papua, Indonesia. Foley (2003) considers their Trans–New Guinea language group status to be established. They may be most closely related to the languages of Paniai Lakes, but this is not yet clear. Capell (1962) posited that their closest relatives were the Kwerba languages, which Ross (2005) rejects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">West Bomberai languages</span> Family of Papuan languages

The (Greater) West Bomberai languages are a family of Papuan languages spoken on the Bomberai Peninsula of western New Guinea and in East Timor and neighboring islands of Indonesia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alor–Pantar languages</span> Papuan languages of Nusa Tenggara Timur, Indonesia

The Alor–Pantar languages are a family of clearly related Papuan languages spoken on islands of the Alor archipelago near Timor in southern Indonesia. They may be most closely related to the Papuan languages of eastern Timor, but this is not yet clear. A more distant relationship with the Trans–New Guinea languages of the Bomberai peninsula of Western New Guinea has been proposed based on pronominal evidence, but though often cited has never been firmly established.

The Timor–Alor–Pantar (TAP) languages are a family of languages spoken in Timor, Kisar, and the Alor archipelago in Southern Indonesia. It is the westernmost Papuan language family that survives, and one of two such outlier families in east Nusantara.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">West Trans–New Guinea languages</span>

The West Trans–New Guinea languages are a suggested linguistic linkage of Papuan languages, not well established as a group, proposed by Malcolm Ross in his 2005 classification of the Trans–New Guinea languages. Ross suspects they are an old dialect continuum, because they share numerous features that have not been traced to a single ancestor using comparative historical linguistics. The internal divisions of the languages are also unclear. William A. Foley considers the TNG identity of the Irian Highlands languages at least to be established.

The Dani–Kwerba languages were a hypothetical language family proposed by Arthur Capell in 1962 and adopted by Stephen Wurm as part of his Trans–New Guinea (TNG) phylum. Malcolm Ross reassigned the Dani languages to a West Trans–New Guinea linkage and the Kwerba languages to his Tor–Kwerba family, outside of TNG altogether.

The Oirata–Makasae, or Eastern Timor, languages are a small family of Papuan languages spoken in eastern Timor and the neighboring island of Kisar.

Proto-Trans–New Guinea is the reconstructed proto-language ancestral to the Trans–New Guinea languages. Reconstructions have been proposed by Malcolm Ross and Andrew Pawley.

References

  1. ↑ "The Alor-Pantar languages".
  2. ↑ Holton, Gary (2014). "Western Pantar". In Schapper, Antoinette (ed.). The Papuan Languages of Timor, Alor and Pantar: Volume 1: Sketch Grammars. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 23–96.
  3. ↑ Holton, Gary, Marian Klamer, František Kratochvíl, Laura Robinson & Antoinette Schapper. 2012. The historical relation of the Papuan languages of Alor and Pantar. Oceanic Linguistics 51(1).87-122.
  4. ↑ Capell, A. 1944. Peoples and languages of Timor. Oceania 14(3).191-219.
  5. ↑ Wurm, S.A., C.L. Voorhoeve & K.A. McElhanon. 1975. The Trans–New Guinea Phylum in general. New Guinea Area Languages and Language Study, vol. I, Papuan Languages and the New Guinea Linguistic Scene, ed. by S.A. Wurm, 299-322. (Pacific Linguistics C-38). Canberra: Australian National University.
  6. ↑ Ross, Malcolm. 2005. Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages. Papuan Pasts: Cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples ed. by Andrew Pawley, Robert Attenborough, Jack Golson & Robin Hide, 15-66. (Pacific Linguistics PL 572). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
  7. ↑ Donohue, Mark & Antoinette Schapper. 2007. Towards a morphological history of the languages of Timor, Alor and Pantar. Paper presented at the Fifth East Nusantara Conference, Kupang, Indonesia.

Further reading

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