| Timor-Babar
Timor
|
|
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution: |
Indonesia |
| Genetic classification: |
Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian (MP) Nuclear MP Central-Eastern MP ? Timor-Babar |
| Subdivisions: |
Southwest Maluku
Nuclear Timor ?
|
The Timor-Babar languages are a group of fifty Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages spoken on the islands of Timor, neighboring Wetar, and the Babar Islands to the east.
The numerically most important languages are Uab Meto of West Timor and Tetum of East Timor, each with about half a million speakers, though Tetum is a co-official language and also a lingua franca among non-Tetum East Timorese.
Classification
A 2008 analysis of the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database[1] found support for the Timor-Babar family at a 98% confidence level. The structure of the family, with the confidence of each branch, was:
- Southwest Maluku–Kisar (100%)
- Nuclear Timor (77%)
- West Timor (100%)
- East Timor (70%)
Not included in the 2008 study were Helong, classified by Ethnologue 15 as an isolate within the Timor languages; East Damar, classified as an isolate within Southeast Maluku; and Nauate and the Waima'a languages (Habu, Kairui-Midiki, Waima'a) of eastern Timor, which are not closely related to each other but sometimes subsumed under the acronym Kawaimina. The Nauate and Waima'a are structurally Austronesian, but their vocabulary is predominately that of a neighboring Papuan language, Makasae, and their position is uncertain. Possibly also Austronesian rather than Papuan is Makuv'a (Lovaea).
References
- ^ Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database
- ^ This despite an Ethnologue claim of 89% lexical similarity
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