Woisika, also known as Kamang, is 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 ...

Alor Island Alor () is the largest island in the Alor Archipelago and is one of the 92 officially listed outlying islands of Indonesia. It is located at the eastern end of the Lesser Sunda Islands chain that runs through southeastern Indonesia, which fr ...

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, ...

. The three main dialects are Western Kamang, Lowland Kamang, and Upland Kamang. Dialects also include Lembur, Sibo, Kamang, Tiayai, Watang, Kamana-Kamang. They may constitute more than one language. Kamang is an

endangered language An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a " dead langua ...

, since children usually only have passive competence of the language, and instead are shifting to Malay. Speakers may prefer the term ''Kamang'' to refer to the speech community as a whole; ''Woisika'' is a village name.

Phonology

Consonants

/h/ and /ʔ/ are marginal. /r/ is rare in initial and final position. Word-final /s/ is only in loan words. The consonant /ŋ/ is not found word-initially, and /f/ is not found word-finally.

Vowels

Grammar

Serial verb constructions

Kamang has

serial verb construction The serial verb construction, also known as (verb) serialization or verb stacking, is a syntactic phenomenon in which two or more verbs or verb phrases are strung together in a single clause. It is a common feature of many African, Asian and Ne ...

Valence

Examples with avalent, monovalent, bivalent, and trivalent verbs are shown below. Avalent Monovalent Bivalent Trivalent

Riddles

Woisika riddles relate to animals, the human body, human artifacts, natural phenomena, crops and other foods, among others.

References

Alor–Pantar languages Languages of Indonesia Endangered languages of Indonesia {{TNG-lang-stub