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]
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 |
The vowel inventory of West Damar is simply /a e i o u/.
A few aspects of West Damar morphology are noted as follows.[5]
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 |
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:
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 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 |
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.