The Bunak language (also known as Bunaq, Buna, Bunake, pronounced ) is the language of the

Bunak The Bunak (also known as Bunaq, Buna', Bunake) people are an ethnic group that live in the mountainous region of central Timor, split between the political boundary between West Timor, Indonesia, particularly in Lamaknen District and East Timor. ...

people of the mountainous region of central

Timor Timor (, , ) is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, in the north of the Timor Sea. The island is Indonesia–Timor-Leste border, divided between the sovereign states of Timor-Leste in the eastern part and Indonesia in the ...

, split between the political boundary between West Timor,

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

, particularly in Lamaknen District and

East Timor Timor-Leste, also known as East Timor, officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is a country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the coastal exclave of Oecusse in the island's northwest, and ...

. It is one of the few on Timor which is not an

Austronesian language The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken b ...

, but rather a

Papuan language 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 ...

of the Timor–Alor–Pantar language family. The language is surrounded by

Malayo-Polynesian languages The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. The Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken by the Austronesian peoples outside of Taiwan, in the island nations of Southeas ...

, like Uab Meto and Tetum. Bunak distinguishes between animate and inanimate noun classes.

Phonology

* Plosive sounds /p t k/ can be heard as unreleased allophones ̚ t̚ k̚ in word-final position. * Sounds /b d ɡ/ can be heard as � r ɣin intervocalic positions. * /ɡ/ can be heard as ʒwhen preceding /i/. * /z/ can have allophones � dʒin free variation. * /tʃ/ is heard as when preceding /i/. * /l/ in word-final position can also be heard as a fricative �in free variation. Schapper (2009).

Pronouns

Pronouns seem to tie Bunak more closely to the Alor–Pantar languages, in a group Ross (2005) calls "West Timor", than with the Papuan East Timor languages. The independent pronouns and object prefixes, which appear to retain the proto-Trans–New Guinea dual suffix *-li, are as follows:

Notes

References

* * * *

External links

* ELAR archive o
Zapal, an oral literature genre of the Bunaq Lamaknen
* Timothy Usher, New Guinea World
Bunaq
Languages of Indonesia Languages of Timor-Leste Timor–Alor–Pantar languages {{TNG-lang-stub