Alor Malay is a Malay-based creole language spoken in the Alor archipelago of

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, ...

. Speakers perceive Alor Malay to be a different register of standard Indonesian, but both of these are prestige varieties of the archipelago. Many people are able to understand standard Indonesian, but cannot speak it fluently and choose to use Alor Malay on a daily basis. Alor Malay is based on

Kupang Malay Kupang Malay or Kupang language is a Malay-based creole language spoken in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara, which is on the west end of Timor Island. Kupang Malay is presently used as a lingua franca for inter-ethnic communication, and it also has n ...

; however, Alor Malay differs significantly from Kupang Malay, especially in its pronouns. Before Alor Malay became

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...

Alorese language Alorese () 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 Taiwan ...

served as a lingua franca in the Alor-Pantar archipelago before Malay began to be widely used.

Morphology

Alor Malay is an isolating language. Verbs are not morphologically marked for tense or aspect. The only productive nominal morphology is full reduplication. Nominal reduplication indicates plurality, collectivity, and diversity. Full reduplication of the verb can express intensity, iterativity, and casualness, among other concepts. Nominal Reduplication Verbal Reduplication

Syntax

The typical word order in Alor Malay is Agent Verb Patient. Alor Malay uses serial verb constructions such as ''bawa datang'' ‘bring (lit. bring come)’ and ''kasi jatu'' ‘drop (lit. give fall)’. There are also temporal and aspectual adverbs. The verbal negation marker precedes the verb, as in ''dia tida omong'' ‘he does not speak’. Possessed items are preceded by their possessors. Demonstratives typically precede their nouns. Possession Negation Serial Verb Construction

References

{{Languages of Indonesia Languages of Indonesia Malay-based pidgins and creoles