Tambora is the poorly attested non- Austronesian ( Papuan) language of the Tambora culture of central

Sumbawa Sumbawa is an Indonesian island, located in the middle of the Lesser Sunda Islands chain, with Lombok to the west, Flores to the east, and Sumba further to the southeast. Along with Lombok, it forms the province of West Nusa Tenggara, but th ...

, in what is now

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 ...

, that was wiped out by the 1815 eruption of

Mount Tambora Mount Tambora, or Tomboro, is an active stratovolcano in West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. Located on Sumbawa in the Lesser Sunda Islands, it was formed by the active subduction zones beneath it. Before 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora, 1815, its e ...

. It was the westernmost known Papuan language and was relatively unusual among Papuan languages in being the language of a maritime trading state, though contemporary Papuan trading states were also found off

Halmahera Halmahera, formerly known as Jilolo, Gilolo, or Jailolo, is the largest island in the Maluku Islands. It is part of the North Maluku province of Indonesia, and Sofifi, the capital of the province, is located on the west coast of the island. Ha ...

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and

Tidore Tidore ( id, Kota Tidore Kepulauan, lit. "City of Tidore Islands") is a city, island, and archipelago in the Maluku Islands of eastern Indonesia, west of the larger island of Halmahera. Part of North Maluku Province, the city includes the island ...

Vocabulary

One word list was collected prior to the eruption, published as Raffles (1817, 1830). It is clear from this that the language is not Austronesian; indeed, there are only a few Austronesian loans. In the list below, it is presumed that transcribes and . Hyphen is possibly a glottal stop . Two words, ''búlu'' and ''mákan'', are clearly Malay loans. Zollinger (1850) identified several possible loans from other Austronesian languages; Tambora was a regional trading power, so a number of loans might be expected. The connection of ''taintu'' with the Papuan Timor–Alor–Pantar languages, if not coincidence, would presumably be genetic, not a loan. However,

Harald Hammarström Harald Hammarström (born 1977 in Västerås, Sweden) is a Swedish linguist. He is currently an Associate Senior Lecturer at Uppsala University. Hammarström is especially known for his extensive work on curating ''Glottolog'', a bibliographic dat ...

considers it to be a language isolate.

Analysis

Donohue notes that word lists of this size from other Indonesian languages with relatively small consonant inventories typically succeed in recording all consonants, so the same might be expected here, apart from consonants which could not be transcribed with Malay orthographic conventions, such as the

implosives Implosive consonants are a group of stop consonants (and possibly also some affricates) with a mixed glottalic ingressive and pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism.''Phonetics for communication disorders.'' Martin J. Ball and Nicole Müller. Ro ...

found in the region. ''P'' only occurs after ''m'', and may be a reflex of ''h'', as in other languages of the area. Overall, the phonemic profile is consistent with many languages of eastern Indonesia: that is, to the east but not to the west of Tambora. ''Hok-hok'' 'sit' suggests verbal reduplication, but the only other verb, ''makan'', is an obvious Malay loan. ''Saing'óre'' 'eye', ''saing kóme'' 'nose', ''sóntong'' 'teeth', ''sumóre'' 'belly' all begin similarly, suggesting a prefix, possibly a possessive prefix, with a nasal ''-ng' ''that assimilates to a following consonant, and with ''sumóre'' 'belly' presumably from *more or *pore. Several of the numbers begin with ''sV-'', a common pattern in Austronesian languages where 'one' is reduced to a prefix. Indeed, ''seena'' 'one' is a possible Austronesian loan. Donohue suggests that ''sarone'' 'ten' ~ ''sisarone'' 'twenty' may reflect an earlier vigesimal system, possibly from ''sa-'' 'one' ''doh'' 'person' ''-ne'' (suffix), a common way of counting 'twenty' in the region. 'Twenty' might then have shifted to meaning 'ten' under the influence of decimal trading partners. The word ''moríhoh'' 'God' reflects a common term in the area, of uncertain but perhaps Sanskrit derivation. In Tambora, however, it also resembles ''homóri'' 'father', suggesting that neither word can be assumed to be native. Donohue notes one word, ''taintu'' 'hand', which is plausibly connected to other Papuan languages, those of Timor and Alor to the east: Abui ''taŋ'', Oirata ''tana'', Kui ''tan''. This leaves the ''-tu'' as a possible suffix, and the similar shape of ''maimpo'' 'foot' suggests to Donohue that these may derive from ''tayn'' and ''maym'' plus a suffix ''-ho'' or ''-hu'' which assimilates to the preceding consonant. A number of words end in ''-(k)ong'' and ''-ore'', and the former are semantically similar (''ingkong'' 'sun', ''kóngkong'' 'day', ''mang'ong'' 'moon', ''kingkong'' 'star'), suggesting possible suffixes, though they might simply be coincidence.

Vocabulary

Analysis

See also

References

Further reading