Mambai (language)
Mambai | ||
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Spoken in |
East Timor | |
speaker | 195.778 | |
Linguistic classification |
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Official status | ||
Other official status in | East Timor ( national language ) | |
Language codes | ||
ISO 639 -1 |
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ISO 639 -2 |
map |
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ISO 639-3 |
Mambai is a central Malayo-Polynesian language of the Timor branch . It is spoken by the East Timorese Mambai ethnic group . As one of the Ramelaic languages , it had a stronger influence from the Papuan and Ambonesian Malay languages . With 195,778 speakers, it is the second most common mother tongue in East Timor.
distribution
The main centers of the Mambai are Ermera , Aileu , Remexio , Turiscai , Maubisse , Ainaro and Same . The majority of the Exile Timorese in Australia also speak Mambai as their mother tongue. Mambai is one of the 15 national languages of East Timor recognized in the constitution .
When the Portuguese made Dili the new capital of their Portuguese Timor colony in 1769 , Mambai was still spoken in the surrounding area. The result was that the Tetum Prasa there has strong influences from the Mambai.
Grammar and dialects
Due to the mountainous landscape, the language is split into many dialects (Damata, Lolei, Manua, Mambai) . The language has a very simple morphology . The vocabulary of the Papuan languages has been partly adopted, for example in the southern dialects (for example in Ainaro) from neighboring Bunak . The Creolization with Ambonesian Malay, which probably originated from Dili by traders in the 15th century, is almost complete. The southern dialects in particular have many words that have been shortened by syncope or apocope . The phenomenon is also a common feature with the bunak or its western neighbor, the uab meto . It is less pronounced in the northern dialects.
Comparison of the dialects of the Mambai of Ainaro and Aileu | ||
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number | Ainaro | Aileu |
1 | id | id |
2 | rua | ru |
3 | tel | devil |
4th | pat | fat |
5 | lim | lim |
6th | lim-nain-ide | nen |
7th | lim-nai-rua | hitu |
8th | lim-nai-tel | ualu |
9 | lim-nai-pata | sia |
10 | sagúl | sakúl |
Web links
- Geoffrey Hull , Celestino de Araújo, Benjamim de Araújo e Corte-Real : Mambai Language Manual. Ainaro dialect. Sebastião Aparício da Silva Project, 2001
- Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald , RMW Dixon : Grammars in contact. A cross-linguistic typology. Oxford University Press, 2006, ISBN 0-19-920783-6 (Chapter 6)
- Helem Andressa de Oliveira Fogaça: Estudo fonético e fonológico do Mambae de Same. Uma língua de Timor-Leste . (PDF; 1.34 MB) Dissertation. Universidade de Brasília, Brasília 2013.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Results of the 2015 census Direcção-Geral de Estatística ; accessed on November 23, 2016.
- ↑ Results of the 2010 census of the individual sucos. ( Memento from January 23, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) East Timor's statistical office
- ^ A b c The Languages of East Timor: Some Basic Facts . ( Memento from January 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive )