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 non-Austronesian 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 esta...
more
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 non-Austronesian 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.
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, and Hamap sometimes separate from Adang. Abui, Kamang, and Kabola may also not be unitary languages.
The 15th edition of Ethnologue included Makasae as a third branch, but by comparing pronouns, Malcolm Ross concluded that Makasae belongs with the East Timor languages. This is reflected in the 16th edition.
Language documentation efforts in the early 21st century have...
less
