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 ...
of
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, 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.
Vowels
* Sounds are also heard as .
Citations
References
*
Timor–Babar languages
Languages of the Maluku Islands
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