Naueti (also written as Nauoti, Nauete and Nauweti but ultimately from Naueti nau eti 'now') is an Austronesian language spoken by 15,045 (census 2010) in the subdistricts of
,
Uatucarbau
Uatucarbau (''Uato Carabau''), officially Uatucarbau Administrative Post (, ), is an administrative post (and was formerly a subdistrict) in Viqueque municipality, East Timor. Its seat or administrative centre
An administrative center is ...
and
Baguia
Baguia, officially Baguia Administrative Post (, ), is an administrative post (and was formerly a subdistrict) in Baucau municipality, East Timor. Its seat or administrative centre is , and it has ten sucos.
Taur Matan Ruak
José Ma ...
in southeastern
East Timor
East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-w ...
. 1,062 Naueti are living in
Baguia
Baguia, officially Baguia Administrative Post (, ), is an administrative post (and was formerly a subdistrict) in Baucau municipality, East Timor. Its seat or administrative centre is , and it has ten sucos.
Taur Matan Ruak
José Ma ...
.
It is closely related to
Waima'a,
Kairui and
Midiki, three other Austronesian languages spoken on Timor. The Australian linguist Geoffrey Hull coined the acronym Kawaimina to refer to them as a dialect continuum but it is preferable to understand them as separate languages. The Dutch linguist Aone Van Engelenhoven applies the label Eastern Extra-Ramelaic languages.
Structurally, it is a highly isolating
Malayo-Polynesian
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 Southea ...
language. However, its vocabulary is to some extent Papuan, due to contact with
Makasae
Makasae (also known as Makassai, Macassai, Ma'asae, Makasai) is a Papuan language spoken by about 100,000 people in the eastern part of East Timor, in the districts of Baucau and Viqueque, just to the west of Fataluku. It is the most widely spok ...
, which surrounds and cohabits with Naueti. There exist at least two dialects of Naueti, the Uatolari and the Uatocarbau-Baguia Naueti, the latter being distinguishable through some vocabulary but also through the
allophone of /w/ before rounded vowels (e.g. /wono/ 'war' is pronounced
ono
ONO, Ono or Ōno may refer to:
Places Fiji
* Ono Island (Fiji)
Israel
* Kiryat Ono
* Ono, Benjamin, ancient site
Italy
* Ono San Pietro
Ivory Coast
* Ono, Ivory Coast, a village in Comoé District
Japan
* Ōno Castle, Fukuoka
* ...
in Uatolari but
ono
ONO, Ono or Ōno may refer to:
Places Fiji
* Ono Island (Fiji)
Israel
* Kiryat Ono
* Ono, Benjamin, ancient site
Italy
* Ono San Pietro
Ivory Coast
* Ono, Ivory Coast, a village in Comoé District
Japan
* Ōno Castle, Fukuoka
* ...
in Uatocarbau and Baguia).
Just like its low-level related languages, Naueti has aspirated stops and voiceless sonorants but shows preglottalized phonemes instead of ejectives and has no preglottalized counterpart of Waima'a and Midiki /s'/. In contrast, Naueti has a voiceless rhotic that is missing in the other inventories.
The vowel system is straightforward with vowels /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/ and /u/. There is no distinctive vowel length, as vowel sequences are heterosyllabic. Stress generally falls on the penultimate syllable, with very few native exceptions. Loanwords preserve their original stress.
References
Timor–Babar languages
Languages of East Timor
Isolating languages
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