Kayeli ( id, Bahasa Kayeli) is an extinct Austronesian language once used by the

Kayeli people Kayeli ( id, Suku Kayeli) people is an ethnic group mainly living on the southern coast of the Kayeli Gulf of Indonesian island Buru, mainly from the Kaiely Gulf. From an ethnographic point of view, Kayeli are close to other indigenous people of B ...

of the

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

n island

Buru Buru (formerly spelled Boeroe, Boro, or Bouru) is the third largest island within the Maluku Islands of Indonesia. It lies between the Banda Sea to the south and Seram Sea to the north, west of Ambon and Seram islands. The island belongs to ...

. Two dialects were recognized, namely Leliali (Liliali) and Lumaete (Lumaiti, Mumaite, Lumara).

History

Whereas about 800 Kayeli people still live in the southern coast of the Kayeli Bay, in the eastern part of Buru, as of 1995, only 3 elderly people could speak the language and have not used it for three decades; other natives changed to

Ambonese Malay Ambonese Malay or simply Ambonese is a Malay-based creole language spoken on Ambon Island in the Maluku Islands of Eastern Indonesia. It was first brought by traders from Western Indonesia, then developed when the Dutch Empire colonised the Ma ...

. The latter is widely used in the

Maluku Islands The Maluku Islands (; Indonesian: ''Kepulauan Maluku'') or the Moluccas () are an archipelago in the east of Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located ...

as a second language and is a simplified form of Indonesian with additions of the local lexicon. A 1983 literature review indicated about 1,000 speakers of Kayeli; however, a field survey conducted in 1989 on Buru island located only four speakers, two men and two women, all in their sixties. They have not used the language for over 30 years and had difficulties in summarizing the basic lexicon. The last speaker of the Leliali dialect died in 1989 and no speakers of Lumaete could be located by then. A little more than 400 basic Kayeli words could be assembled, of which 13% were loanwords from Malay, Arabic, Portuguese and Sanskrit.PDF version
/ref> They revealed significant phonetic and lexical difference with the Buru language – the lexical similarity of Leliali dialect with the closest Buru dialect of Masarete was 45%. The most detailed study of Kayeli language was conducted in the 1980s by Charles E. Grimes and Barbara Dix Grimes – Australian missionaries and ethnographers, active members of SIL International (they should not be confused with Joseph E. Grimes and Barbara F. Grimes, Charles' parents, also known Australian ethnographers). They use Kayeli language as an example in the analysis of the causes of recent extinction of some Malayo-Polynesian languages.

References

{{Languages of Indonesia Central Maluku languages Languages of Indonesia Extinct languages of Oceania Extinct languages of Asia Languages extinct in the 1980s