West Damar language
| West Damar | |
|---|---|
| North Damar | |
| Damar Batumerah | |
| Native to | Indonesia |
| Region | Maluku Islands |
Native speakers | (800 cited 1987)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | drn |
| Glottolog | west2548 |
West Damar, or North Damar, is an Austronesian language of Damar Island, one of the Maluku Islands of Indonesia. In spite of rather low cognacy rates with its neighboring languages,[2] it can be classified as part of the Babar languages based on qualitative evidence.[3]
It is spoken in two villages (Batumerah, Kuai) located in the north-western part of Damar.[4]
Phonology[edit]
The consonant inventory of West Damar is as follows:[5]
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive/Affricate | voiceless | p | t | t͡ʃ | k | |
| voiced | (b) | d | (ɡ) | |||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| Fricative | s | x | h | |||
| Trill | r | |||||
| Lateral | l | |||||
| Approximant | w | j | ||||
- Sounds /b ɡ/ only occur in loanwords from Indonesian. /ŋ/ also mostly, but not exclusively, appears in loanwords.
The vowel inventory of West Damar is simply /a e i o u/.
Morphology[edit]
A few aspects of West Damar morphology are noted as follows.[5]
Verb conjugation[edit]
Verbs in West Damar are conjugated according to person and number.
| Person/number | Prefix | Verb -oni "to eat" | Other attested verbs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st sg. | w- | woni | |
| 2nd sg. | m- | moni | |
| 3rd sg. | n- [* 1] | yoni | n-poko "explodes", n-woludlo "hunts", n-hakro "boils", n-dekro "is dry", ng-kerso "is thin", |
| 1st pl. inclusive | k-, t- | toni | k-la "we go", k-wadano "we hear", k-hoto "we talk", k-mattuni "we sleep", k-nehi "we run" |
| 1st pl. exclusive | m- | moni | |
| 2nd pl. | m- -y-,[* 2] ms- | msoni | mlyo "you go", mnyedi "you fall" |
| 3rd pl. | r- | roni |
- ^ Becomes ng- before velar consonants.
- ^ The -y- is attached after the initial consonant of a verb stem, so from -lo "go" is born mlyo.
Possession[edit]
West Damar has a series of possessive suffixes that are attached to nouns. There is no possessive verb. The possessive suffixes are as follows:
| Person/number | Suffix |
|---|---|
| 1st sg. | -cheni |
| 2nd sg. | -mcheni |
| 3rd sg. | -eni |
| 1st pl. inclusive | -toni |
| 1st pl. exclusive | -moni |
| 2nd pl. | -mseni |
| 3rd pl. | -roni |
The possessive suffixes are built from a base suffix -ni that also appears as a lexical derivational suffix:
- ulcho + -ni > ulchuni "husband"
- deweya + -ni > deweyeni "wife"
- ullo "month" + -ni > ulloni "moon"
Negation[edit]
The word for "no" in West Damar is kewe. When split into a circumfix, ke- -we serves as a simple negator for content words like nouns, verbs, and adjectives. The -we part of the negator comes immediately after the stem it attaches to, but before other clitics. A few examples of negation provided by Chlenova are as follows:
ke-mormorsa-we
NEG-buffalo-NEG
"not a buffalo"
Piter
Peter
ke-tucha-we-mo
NEG-old-NEG-?
odo-i
1SG-DET
"Peter (is) not as old as I (am)"
Another negative predicative word krawui "unavailable" is also recorded.
Vocabulary[edit]
Vocabulary list:[4]
| West Damar | Indonesian | English |
|---|---|---|
| odo | saya | I |
| ede | engkau | you (sing.) |
| idi | dia | he, she |
| itito | kita | we (incl.) |
| odomo | kami | we (exc.) |
| edmi | kamu | you (pl.) |
| idiro | mereka | they |
| mehno | satu | one |
| wyeru | dua | two |
| wyetteli | tiga | three |
| wyoto | empat | four |
| wilimo | lima | five |
| wyenamo | enam | six |
| witi | tujuh | seven |
| way | delapan | eight |
| wisi | sembilan | nine |
| uswuti | sepuluh | ten |
| ulkona | kepala | head |
| lima | tangan | hand |
| eya | kaki | foot |
Sample sentences[edit]
Ede mpondai? - Are you ill?
E’e, odo ulkonacheni nchepondo. - Yes, I have a headache.
Wohleyo Binayani idihe hulchupondeheti wohleyo Ahehendini - The mountain Binaya is the highest at the Seram island.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ West Damar at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ Mark Taber. 1993. Toward a better understanding of the Indigenous Languages of Southwestern Maluku. Oceanic Linguistics 32. 389-441.
- ^ Aone van Engelenhoven. 2010. Tentatively locating West-Damar among the languages of Southwest Maluku. In Chlenova, Svetlana and Fedorchuk, Artem (eds.), Studia Anthropologica: a Festschrift in Honor of Michael Chlenov, 297-326. Moscow-Jerusalem: Gesharim.
- ^ a b "West Damar Language or Damar-Batumerah, an Isolate in South-Eastern Indonesia" (PDF). 2015-05-12. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-05-12. Retrieved 2020-07-04.
- ^ a b Chlenova, Svetlana (2008). "Preliminary Grammatical Notes on Damar Batumerah or West Damar, a Language of Southwest Maluku". In Yury Lander; Alexander Ogloblin (eds.). Language and Text in the Austronesian World: Studies in honor of Ülo Sirk. München: Lincom. pp. 163–177.
Further reading[edit]
- Michael Chlenov & Svetlana Chlenova, 2006. "West Damar language or Damar-Batumerah, an isolate in South-Eastern Indonesia." Tenth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics, 17–20 January 2006, Palawan, Philippines.[1]
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