Alor–Pantar languages

The Alor–Pantar languages are a family of clearly related Papuan languages spoken on islands of the Alor archipelago near Timor in southern Indonesia. They may be most closely related to the Papuan languages of western Timor, but this is not yet clear. A more distant relationship with the Trans–New Guinea languages of the Bomberai peninsula has been proposed based on pronominal evidence, but though often cited has never been firmly established.

Alor–Pantar
Geographic
distribution		Alor Island, Pantar Island, Indonesia
Linguistic classificationTrans–New Guinea
Glottologalor1249[2]
The languages of Pantar (left) and Alor (right). The white enclaves near Blagar and Retta and Tereweng. "Western Pantar" is Lamma. Kafoa (Jafoo) is the black area between Kelon (Klon) and Abui. Kabola is merged with Adang. Alorese is an Austronesian language.

Languages

The family is conventionally divided into two branches, centered on the islands of Alor and Pantar.

Tereweng is sometimes considered a separate language from Blagar, Hamap sometimes separate from Adang, and Sar sometimes from Teiwa. Abui, Kamang, and Kabola may also not be unitary languages. There is a total of 71,940 speakers.

Distribution of speakers of Alor-Pantar languages by language

  Abui (20.69%)
  Adang (14.85%)
  Blagar (12.17%)
  Western Pantar (12.17%)
  Woisika (6.30%)
  Klon (6.09%)
  Kula (6.09%)
  Kui (5.16%)
  Teiwa (4.87%)
  Others (11.61%)

External classification

It has long been recognized that the Papuan languages of the Alor archipelago (including Alor and Pantar, as well as the four small islands of Buaya, Pura, Ternate, and Tereweng in the Pantar Strait) form a well-defined group. Apparent cognates among basic vocabulary are abundant, as demonstrated for example in Stokhof’s (1975) survey of basic vocabulary, and the shape of pronominal systems is almost identical across the group.[3] The genetic relatedness of the Alor–Pantar languages has been confirmed through the reconstruction of the proto-Alor–Pantar language.[4] Relationships between the Alor–Pantar languages and at least some (though perhaps not all) of the non-Austronesian languages of Timor Island may justify the positing of a Timor–Alor–Pantar language family, however, the relationship between the AP group and the Timor languages is of second order.

Wurm et al. (1975) classified the AP languages as members of the putative Trans-New Guinea Phylum.[5] However, the authors offered little evidence for this classification and remained somewhat doubtful, noting, “whichever way they [the Timor–Alor–Pantar languages] are classified, they contain strong substratum elements of the other … phyla involved” (Wurm et al. 1975:318).

Most recently, based on an analysis of pronominal shapes Ross (2005) assigns AP to his West Trans-New Guinea linkage, a subgroup of Trans-New Guinea.[6] Yet Ross’ proposal requires that AP pronouns be derived from pTNG via a flip-flop in which second-person pronouns trade places with the third person. Compare pTNG *ŋga ‘2pro’ and *(y)a ‘3pro’ with Nedebang aŋ and gaŋ, respectively. Bottom-up reconstruction based on regular sound correspondences may shed further light on these issues.

Internal classification

Holton, et al. (2012)

Holton, et al. (2012) propose the following classificatory subgrouping for the Alor–Pantar languages, with individual languages marked by italics.[7]

"Proto-Alor–Pantar" may be synonymous with Proto-Timor–Alor–Pantar, as the languages outside the Alor branch do not seem to form a valid node with it against the Oirata–Makasai languages of East Timor and Bunak language on the Timorese border. However, the relationship is distant.

Kaiping and Klamer (2019)

A 2019 phylogenetic study of Alor-Pantar by Kaiping and Klamer gives the following internal structure:[8]

Alor-Pantar

Kaiping and Klamer (2019b) have found that the four major Alor–Pantar subgroups, namely Pantar, Blagar, Central Alor, and East Alor, form different phylogenetic trees depending on the methodology that is applied.[9]

Pronouns

Ross (2005) postulates a "West Timor" group uniting Alor–Pantar with Bunak. He reconstructs the pronouns as:

West Timor pronouns
sgpl
1ex *na*ni
1in *pi
2 *[y]a*i
3 *ga*gi

3pl *gi is not attested from Bunak, and the inclusive is just i.

Language documentation

Language documentation efforts in the early 21st century have produced a range of published documentary materials.

  • Grammatical descriptions
  • Dictionaries
    • Kamus Pengantar Bahasa Abui (Kratochvíl & Delpada 2008)[14]
    • Kamus Pengantar Bahasa Pantar Barat (Holton & Lamma Koly 2008)[15]

Proto-language
Proto-Alor–Pantar
Reconstruction ofAlor–Pantar languages
Reconstructed
ancestors

A reconstruction of proto-Alor–Pantar has been proposed by Holton and Robinson (2017).[16]

Proto-Alor–Pantar consonants are:[17]

ptkq
bdg
mn
s
wj
l (r)

In contrast, proto-Timor-Alor-Pantar does not have the voiceless uvular stop /q/.[17]

Lexical reconstructions by Holton and Robinson (2017) are:[7]

proto-Alor–Pantar reconstructions (Holton and Robinson 2017)
glossproto-Alor-Pantar
‘bird’*(a)dVl
‘name’*en(i,u)
‘thatch’*aman
‘black’*aqana
‘vagina’*-ar
‘two’*araqu
‘bite’*-asi
‘crocodile’*bagai
‘yellow’*bagori
‘pig’*baj
‘leg’*-bat
‘mat’*bis
‘wave’*bob
‘betel nut’*bui
‘guard’*bukan
‘smoke’*bunaq
‘sing’*dar(a)
‘slippery’*dul(a)
‘thick’*dumV
‘rat’*dur
‘burn’*ede
‘give’*-ena
‘3sg’*ga-
‘3gen’*ge-
‘3pl’*gi-
‘2sg’*ha-
‘fish’*habi
‘village’*haban
‘fire, firewood’*hada
‘yawn’*hagur
‘breast’*hami
‘excrement’*has
‘empty’*hasak
‘lime’*hawar
‘dream’*hipar
‘sugarcane’*huːba
‘fruit’*is(i)
‘laugh’*jari
‘bad, broken’*jasi
‘star’*jibV
‘dog’*jibar
‘water’*jira
‘fly’ (v.)*jira(n)
‘five’*jiwesin
‘mosquito’*kin
‘fingernail’*kusin
‘flea’*kVt
‘walk’*lam(ar)
‘tongue’*-lebur
‘far’*lete
‘crouch’*luk(V)
‘bark’ (v.)*lVu
‘bat’*madel
‘hear’*magi
‘come’*mai
‘betel vine’*mait
‘father’*-mam
‘bamboo’*mari
‘(be) in/on’*mi
‘climb’*mid
‘nose’*-mim
‘die’*min(a)
‘sit’*mis
‘banana’*mogol
‘body hair’*mudi
‘plant’ (v.)*mudin
‘horn’*-muk
‘rotten’*mVn
‘1sg’*na-
‘eat/drink’*nai
‘sibling (older)’*nan(a)
‘one’*nuk
‘throw’*oda
‘tail’*-ora
‘dry in sun’*por
‘hold’*p{i,u}nV
‘1pl.incl’*pi-
‘spit’*purVn
‘scorpion’*pVr
‘goanna’*rVsi
‘spear’*qaba(k)
‘tens’*qar-
‘new’*siba
‘shark’*sib(a,i)r
‘six’*talam
‘saltwater’*tam
‘fat’*tama
‘hand/arm’*-tan
‘pierce’*tapai
‘stand’*tas
‘tree’*tei
‘bedbug’*temek
‘ripe’*tena
‘wake s.o.’*-ten
‘recline’*tia
‘expel’*tiara
‘close’ (v.)*-tiari(n)
‘stomach’*-tok
‘short’*tukV
‘child’*-uaqal
‘ear’*-uari
‘tooth’*uasin
‘knee’*uku
‘mouth’*-wa
‘sun’*wadi
‘blood’*wai
‘roof’*wai
‘stone’*war
‘coconut’*wata
‘bathe’*weli
‘moon’*wur

Further reading
  • Robert Forkel, Simon J Greenhill, & Tiago Tresoldi. (2019). lexibank/robinsonap: Internal Classification of the Alor-Pantar Language Family (Version v3.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.3534994
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References
  1. New Guinea World, West Bomberai
  2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Alor–Pantar". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. Stokhof, W. A. L. 1975. Preliminary notes on the Alor and Pantar languages (East Indonesia). (Pacific Linguistics B-43). Canberra: Australian National University.
  4. Holton, Gary, Marian Klamer, František Kratochvíl, Laura Robinson & Antoinette Schapper. 2012. The historical relation of the Papuan languages of Alor and Pantar. Oceanic Linguistics 51(1).87–122.
  5. Wurm, S.A., C.L. Voorhoeve & K.A. McElhanon. 1975. The Trans-New Guinea Phylum in general. New Guinea Area Languages and Language Study, vol. I, Papuan Languages and the New Guinea Linguistic Scene, ed. by S.A. Wurm, 299–322. (Pacific Linguistics C-38). Canberra: Australian National University.
  6. Ross, Malcolm. 2005. Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages. Papuan Pasts: Cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples ed. by A. Pawley, R. Attenborough, J. Golson & R. Hide, 15–66. (Pacific Linguistics PL 572). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
  7. Holton, Gary, Marian Klamer, František Kratochvíl, Laura C. Robinson, Antoinette Schapper. 2012. "The Historical Relations of the Papuan languages of Alor and Pantar". Oceanic Linguistics, Vol. 51, No. 1, June 2012
  8. Gereon A. Kaiping and Marian Klamer. 2019a. Subgrouping the Timor-Alor-Pantar languages using systematic Bayesian inference. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, Universiteit Leiden.
  9. Gereon Kaiping and Marian Klamer 2019b. How different methods lead to different trees for the Timor-Alor-Pantar languages. 11th International Austronesian and Papuan Languages and Linguistics Conference (APLL11), 13–15 June 2019, Leiden University.
  10. Haan, Johnson Welem. 2001. A grammar of Adang: a Papuan language spoken on the island of Alor, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia: University of Sydney Ph.D. dissertation.
  11. Kratochvíl, František. 2007. A Grammar of Abui. Leiden: Leiden University Ph.D. dissertation.
  12. Baird, Louise. 2008. A Grammar of Klon: A Non–Austronesian Language of Alor, Indonesia. (Pacific Linguistics 596). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
  13. Klamer, Marian. 2010. A Grammar of Teiwa. Berlin: Mouton.
  14. Kratochvil, Frantisek & Benny Delpada. 2008. Kamus Pengantar Bahasa Abui. Kupang, Indonesia: UBB-GMIT.
  15. Holton, Gary & Mahalalel Lamma Koly. 2008. Kamus Pengantar Bahasa Pantar Barat. Kupang, Indonesia: UBB-GMIT. Online: Archived 2014-01-03 at the Wayback Machine
  16. Gary Holton & Laura C. Robinson. 2017. The internal history of the Alor-Pantar language family. In Marian Klamer (ed.), The Alor-Pantar languages, 49–91. Berlin: Language Science Press. doi:10.5281/zenodo.569389
  17. 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. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 569–640. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
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