| Also Known As: Lamma',Mauta,Lemma
Description:
Western Pantar (also known as Lamma) is a Papuan language spoken in the western part of Pantar island in the Alor archipelago of Indonesia. Western Pantar is spoken widely in the region by at least 10,000 speakers.
There are three primary dialects.
Dialect differences are primarily lexical:
The Western Pantar consonant inventory includes: voiced and voiceless stops /p t k ’/ and /b d g/; voiceless fricatives /s h/; nasals /n m ng/; trill /r/ and lateral /l/; and glides/w/ and /y/.
The glottal fricative /h/ is very lightly articulated. It occurs in both word-initial and word-medial positions. Words which begin with a glottal fricative can be difficult to distinguish from vowel-initial forms, which actually begin with a glottal stop.
Consonants /p t k b d g s m n l/ contrast in length with longer (geminate) counterparts (written double).
Western Pantar and the other non-Austronesian languages of Alor and Pantar comprise the Alor-Pantar language family. This family is often itself included within the Timor-Alor-Pantar family, a larger grouping which includes some (though perhaps not all) of the non-Austronesian languages of Timor Island.
The TAP group is clearly Papuan (i.e.,..... full article at Wikipedia |
