Wetarese is 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 ...

Wetar Wetar is a tropical island which belongs to the Indonesian province of Maluku and is the largest island of the Maluku Barat Daya Islands (literally ''Southwest Islands'') Regency of the Maluku Islands. It lies east of the Lesser Sunda Islands, ...

, an island in the south

Maluku Maluku may refer to: Places * Maluku Islands, an archipelago that is part of Indonesia ** List of the Maluku Islands * Maluku (province), a province of Indonesia comprising the central and southern parts of the archipelago * North Maluku, a provin ...

, Indonesia, and of the nearby island Liran.

Background

The four identified principal varieties of Wetarese on Wetar – Aputai, Iliʼuun, Perai and Tugun – are distinct enough that some may consider them to be different languages. Wetarese is closely related to

Galoli The Galoli, or Galolen, are a people of East Timor with a population of about 50,000, primarily along the northern coast of the district of Manatuto. To the west lies the Mambai people. There is an old colony on the southern coast of Wetar isla ...

(spoken on the north coast of

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 ...

and by an immigrant community on the south coast of Wetar) and to Atauran (spoken on Atauro island).

Phonology

The following represents the Tugun dialect:

Consonants

* may also be heard as in free variation. * is mainly heard as in word-final position or in slower speech, it is heard as elsewhere. * only occurs in word-medial positions.

Background

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

Citations

References