Bunak language

The Bunak language (also known as Bunaq, Buna', Bunake, pronounced [bunaʔ]) is the language of the Bunak people of the mountainous region of central Timor, split between the political boundary between West Timor, Indonesia, particularly in Lamaknen District and East Timor. It is one of the few on Timor which is not an Austronesian language, but rather a Papuan language of the Timor-Alor-Pantar language family. The language is surrounded by Malayo-Polynesian languages, like Uab Meto and Tetum.

Bunak
Native to	Indonesia, East Timor
Region	central Timor
Ethnicity	Bunak
Native speakers	76,000 (2010)^[1]
Language family	Trans–New Guinea ? Berau Gulf West Bomberai^[2] Timor–Alor–Pantar Bunak
Official status
Recognised minority language in	East Timor
Language codes
ISO 639-3	bfn
Glottolog	buna1278
ELP	Bunak
Distribution of Bunak in East Timor (West Timor not shown)

Bunak distinguishes between animate and inanimate noun classes.^[3]

Phonology

Consonant sounds

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t	tʃ	k	ʔ
	voiced	b	d		ɡ
Fricative	voiceless		s			h
	voiced		z
Nasal		m	n
Trill			r
Lateral			l
Approximant		w

• Plosive sounds /p t k/ can be heard as unreleased allophones [p̚ t̚ k̚], in word-final position.

• Sounds /b d ɡ/ can be heard as [β r ɣ] in intervocalic positions.

• /ɡ/ can be heard as [dʒ] when preceding /i/.

• /z/ can have allophones [ʒ dʒ] in free variation.

• /tʃ/ is heard as [s] when preceding /i/.

• /l/ in word-final position can also be heard as a fricative [ɬ] in free variation.^[4]

Vowel sounds

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	e		o
Low		a

Pronouns

Pronouns seem to tie Bunak more closely to the Alor–Pantar languages, in a group Ross (2005) calls "West Timor", than with the Papuan East Timor languages. The independent pronouns and object prefixes, which appear to retain the proto-Trans–New Guinea dual suffix *-li, are as follows:

		singular	dual	plural
1st person	exclusive	ne-to n-	ne-li n-	ne-i n-
	inclusive		i-li ∅-	i ∅-
2nd person		e-to ∅-	e-li ∅-	e-i ∅-
3rd person	animate	himo g-	–	hala'i g-
	inanimate	homo

Notes

1. Bunak at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. New Guinea World, West Bomberai
3. Holton, Gary; Klamer, Marian (2018). "The Papuan languages of East Nusantara and the Bird's Head". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. Vol. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 569–640. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
4. Schapper (2009).

References

• Schapper, Antoinette (2009). Bunaq: A Papuan Language of Central Timor (Ph.D. thesis). Australian National University. doi:10.25911/5d611d87406d0. hdl:1885/150147.
• Schapper, Antoinette (2011a). "Crossing the border: Historical and linguistic divides among the Bunaq in central Timor". Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia. 13 (1): 29–49. doi:10.17510/wjhi.v13i1.8.
• Schapper, Antoinette (2011b). "Finding Bunaq: The homeland and expansion of the Bunaq in central Timor". In McWilliam, Andrew; Traube, Elizabeth G. (eds.). Land and Life in Timor-Leste: Ethnographic Essays. ANU Press. doi:10.22459/lltl.12.2011.08. ISBN 978-1-921862-59-5.
• Schapper, Antoinette (2022). A Grammar of Bunaq. Mouton Grammar Library. Vol. 86. Mouton deGruyter. ISBN 9783110714500.

External links

• ELAR archive of Zapal, an oral literature genre of the Bunaq Lamaknen
• Timothy Usher, New Guinea World, Bunaq