The Rote–Meto languages are a subgroup of the
Austronesian language family
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 in the
Lesser Sunda Islands
The Lesser Sunda Islands (, , ), now known as Nusa Tenggara Islands (, or "Southeast Islands"), are an archipelago in the Indonesian archipelago. Most of the Lesser Sunda Islands are located within the Wallacea region, except for the Bali pro ...
. It includes
Meto spoken on Timor and the languages of
Rote Island
Rote Island (, also spelled ''Roti'') is an island of Indonesia, part of the East Nusa Tenggara Provinces of Indonesia, province of the Lesser Sunda Islands. According to legend, this island got its name accidentally when a lost Portuguese people ...
.
Languages
Meto (also called ''Dawan'', ''Atoni'' or ''Timorese'') is a cluster of closely related dialects spoken in the
Indonesian part of Timor and in the
Oecusse district
Oecusse, also known as Oecusse-Ambeno (; ) and formerly just Ambeno, officially the Special Administrative Region Oecusse-Ambeno (), is an exclave, municipality (formerly a district) and the only Special Administrative Region (SAR) of East Tim ...
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 ...
. Rote–Meto varieties spoken on Rote Island can be divided into two groups, West Rote and Nuclear (or East) Rote:
* West Rote:
Dela-Oenale,
Dengka
* Nuclear Rote:
Ba'a
Ba'a (''Baa'', ''Baadale'') is the capital of the Indonesian island of Rote and of the Rote Ndao Regency (''kabupaten''), in the province of East Nusa Tenggara. It lies in the district (''kecamatan
In Indonesia, district or ambiguously subdistri ...
,
Bilbaa,
Bokai,
Keka,
Korbafo,
Landu,
Lole,
Oepao,
Rikou,
Termanu,
Tii
Classification
A close relation between Meto and the languages of Rote was proposed in the 20th century by Jonker (1913) and Mills (1991).
[.] Edwards (2018a, 2018b, 2021) studied the phonological history of the Rote–Meto languages and reconstructed the ancestral proto-language, ''Proto-Rote–Meto'', based on internal evidence from the Rote–Meto languages, and also from the top-down by tracing the phonological changes that occurred in Rote–Meto reflexes of
Proto-Austronesian
Proto-Austronesian (commonly abbreviated as PAN or PAn) is a proto-language. It is the reconstructed ancestor of the Austronesian languages, one of the world's major language families. Proto-Austronesian is assumed to have begun to diversify in ...
and
Proto-Malayo-Polynesian
Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (PMP) is the reconstructed ancestor of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, which is by far the largest branch (by current speakers) of the Austronesian language family. Proto-Malayo-Polynesian is ancestral to all Austronesia ...
reconstructions.
[.][ This suggests that Proto-Rote–Meto first split into two branches, West Rote-Meto and Nuclear Rote.
Subsequently, Meto came into close contact with Nuclear Rote varieties and underwent some shared innovations with the latter. Most likely, speakers of an early form of the Meto cluster originally lived on Rote Islands in the vicinity of West Rote speakers, but later in history migrated to Timor, where they only remained in contact with speakers of Nuclear Rote varieties.][
On a higher level, the Rote–Meto languages group with the Austronesian languages spoken to the east.][ Edwards (2021) includes them in a proposed Timor–Babar subgroup, that comprises all Austronesian languages languages spoken in an area that ranges from Rote Island across Timor and the ]Barat Daya Islands
The Barat Daya Islands (; ) are a group of islands in the Maluku province of Indonesia. The Indonesian phrase ''barat daya'' means 'south-west'.
Geography
These islands are located off the eastern end of East Timor. Wetar is the largest island i ...
to Selaru (one of the Tanimbar Islands
The Tanimbar Islands (; ), also called ''Timur Laut'' (literally, "North East"; ), are a group of about 65 islands in the Maluku province of Indonesia. The largest and most central of the islands is Yamdena; others include Selaru to the sout ...
).[
]
Reconstruction
Comparison table
This comparison table (a small selection from Edwards (2021:88–403)) illustrates the correspondences between the Rote–Meto languages, including inherited vocabulary as well as Rote–Meto innovations.[
]
Lexical influence from non-Austronesian languages
One third of the basic lexicon reconstructed for Proto-Rote–Meto does not go back to a known Austronesian or Malayo-Polynesian etymon
A root (also known as a root word or radical) is the core of a word that is irreducible into more meaningful elements. In morphology, a root is a morphologically simple unit which can be left bare or to which a prefix or a suffix can attach. The ...
. Many of these reconstructed words have sounds that did not occur in the ancestral Proto-Malayo-Polynesian and Proto-Austronesian languages, such as prenasalized stop
Prenasalized consonants are phonetic sequences of a nasal and an obstruent (or occasionally a non-nasal sonorant) that behave phonologically like single consonants. The primary reason for considering them to be single consonants, rather than clus ...
s at the beginning of a word. Most likely, these words were borrowed from a non-Austronesian language spoken by earlier inhabitants of the area.
References
{{Central Malayo-Polynesian languages
Languages of Indonesia
Languages of Timor-Leste
Timor–Babar languages