| Altname | Wetar |
|---|---|
| Nativename | Tutunohan |
| States | Indonesia |
| Region | Wetar Island |
| Date | 1990–2010 |
| Ref | e18 |
| Familycolor | Austronesian |
| Fam 2 | Malayo-Polynesian |
| Fam 3 | Timor-Babar |
| Fam 4 | Wetar-Atauro |
| Lc 1 | apx |
| Ld 1 | Aputai |
| Lc 2 | ilu |
| Ld 2 | Iliuun |
| Lc 3 | wet |
| Ld 3 | Perai |
| Lc 4 | tzn |
| Ld 4 | Tugun |
| Glotto | weta1245 |
| Glottorefname | Wetar |
| Elp | 1347 |
| Elpname | Aputai |
Wetarese is an Austronesian language of Wetar, an island in the south Maluku, Indonesia, and of the nearby island Liran.[1]
Background
The four identified principal varieties of Wetarese on Wetar – Aputai, Iliʼuun, Perai and Tugun – are distinct enough that some may consider them to be different languages.
Wetarese is closely related to Galoli (spoken on the north coast of East Timor and by an immigrant community on the south coast of Wetar) and to Atauran (spoken on Atauro island).
Phonology
The following represents the Tugun dialect:[2]
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | tʃ | k | ʔ |
| voiced | dʒ | ɡ | ||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | h | ||
| voiced | v | |||||
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||
| Tap/Trill | ɾ ~ r | |||||
| Lateral | l | |||||
- /v/ may also be heard as [w] in free variation.[2]
- /r/ is mainly heard as [r] in word-final position or in slower speech, it is heard as [ɾ] elsewhere.[2]
- /ʔ/ only occurs in word-medial positions.[2]
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Close-mid | e | o | |
| Open | a |
- Sounds /e u/ are also heard as [ɛ ʊ].[2]
Citations
- ^ Hull, Geoffrey (2002), "The Languages of East Timor: Some Basic Facts", Instituto Nacional de Linguística, Universidade Nacional de Timor Lorosa'e, archived from the original on 2009-10-01, retrieved 2014-02-25
- ^ (Hinton 2000, p. 115)
References
- Hinton, Bryan D. (2000). "The languages of Wetar: recent survey results and word lists with notes on Tugun grammar". Spices from the East: Papers in Languages of Eastern Indonesia. Grimes, Charles E. (ed.). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. pp. 105–129. doi:10.15144/PL-503.105. hdl:1885/146101