Makuva, also known as Makuʼa or Lóvaia, is an apparently extinct
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 ...
spoken at the northeast tip 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 ...
near the town of
Tutuala.
Makuva has been heavily influenced by neighboring
East Timorese Papuan languages, to the extent that it was long thought to be a Papuan language. The ethnic population was 50 in 1981, but the younger generation uses
Fataluku as their first or second language.
A 2003 report estimated that there were only five fluent speakers of the language.
Numbers
References
External links
* ELAR archive o
Makuʼa language documentation materials
Timor–Babar languages
Languages of Timor-Leste
Endangered Austronesian languages
Extinct languages of Asia
{{austronesian-lang-stub