The Oirata–Makasae, or Eastern Timor, languages are a small family of Papuan languages spoken in eastern Timor and the neighboring island of Kisar.
Languages Mandala et al. (2011)Mandala, Halus; Aron Meko Mbete, Ni Made Dhanawaty and Inyo Yis Fernandez. 2011: “Phonological Evolution of Oirata and its Genetic Relationship with Non-Austronesian Languages in Timor-Leste”, Denpasar: Ejournal Universitas Udayana. found that Fataluku and Oirata are closer to each other than they are to Makasai:
Makasai (including Makalero dialect) Oirata–Fataluku Fataluku (Rusenu perhaps belongs here) Oirata
Fataluku has high dialect diversity, and may be more than a single language, for example with Rusenu. An additional Makuv'a (Lovaea) branch was once assumed for East Timor, but that appears to be a heavily Papuan-influenced Austronesian language.
The fourth Papuan language spoken in East Timor, Bunak, is more distantly related. It is currently unknown if they are closer to each other or to the Alor–Pantar languages; all are clearly related. Together they form a branch of the West Bomberai languages of mainland New Guinea.
Classification Ross (2005) reconstructed first- and second-person pronouns for proto–East Timor:
{| class=wikitable ! !!proto-ET!!Oirata (object)!!Fataluku!!Makasai |- ! |*ani||an-te (ani)||ani||ani |- ! |*ai||aa-te/ee-teee-te is a polite form (ee)||e||ai |- ! |*ini||in-te (in)||ini||ini |- ! |*api||ap-te (ap)||afi||fi |- ! |*i||ii-te (ii)||i||i
Mandala et al. (2011) reconstruct five vowels, *a, *e, *i, *o, *u, and the following consonants, based on 200 cognate sets:
{| class="wikitable" ! !Labial !Alveolar !Velar !Glottal |- align="center" ! Nasal
|- align="center" ! Occlusive
|- align="center" ! Fricative
|- align="center" ! Sonorant
*h and *j appear at the level of proto-Oirata–Fataluku.
External links Timothy Usher, New Guinea World, Proto–East Timor
References