Rusenu

Rusenu
Spoken in	East Timor
speaker	none ( language extinct )
Linguistic classification	pending Rusenu
Language codes
ISO 639 -1	-
ISO 639 -2	-

Rusenu is an extinct language spoken in the far east of Timor .

background

During his research on the East Timorese language Makuva , the Dutch linguist Aone van Engelenhoven discovered in 2007 clues to the language Rusenu, which was previously unknown to science. Van Engelenhoven was shortly before his return home when he was told about a language called Rusenu, which only a woman of over eighty knew anything about. Van Engelenhoven then gave his informant a recording device. The woman knew a nursery rhyme in Rusenu, but could not translate it. Her son could count to ten in the language. Van Engelenhoven documented and analyzed the recording and came to the conclusion that Rusenu was distantly related to the Papuan language Fataluku used in the region , but was nonetheless an independent language. It may also be an Austronesian language .

Van Engelenhoven speculated further that the Rusenu speakers had provided the native population of the region and were also the creators of the several thousand year old cave paintings of Ile Kére Kére . If Rusenu was an Austronesian language, this would at least support the newer thesis that Austronesians settled in this region before the Fataluku.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Bruno van Wayenburg: Raadselachtig Rusenu: Taalkundige ontdekt taalgeheimen en secrettalen op East-Timor . VPRO Noorderlicht. April 4, 2007. Retrieved March 11, 2009.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Bruno van Wayenburg: Sprankje hoop voor talenvorsers: Nieuw ontdekte taal Rusenu alweer bijna uitgestorven . VPRO Noorderlicht. September 13, 2007. Retrieved March 11, 2009.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Steven Hagers: A forgotten language on East Timor . Kennislink. March 20, 2007. Retrieved October 14, 2012.
4. ↑ Andrew McWilliam: Austronesians in linguistic disguise: Fataluku cultural fusion in East Timor ( Memento of the original from November 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 171 kB). Retrieved October 14, 2012.