Waimoa language

Waimoa or Waimaʼa is a language spoken by about 27,000 (2015 census)[1] people in northeast East Timor. Waimoa proper is reported to be mutually intelligible with neighboring Kairui and Midiki, which together have about 5,000 speakers.

Waimoa
RegionNortheast East Timor
Native speakers
21,200 (2015 census)[1]
5,670 L2 speakers (2015 census)
Language codes
ISO 639-3wmh
Glottologwaim1252
ELP
Distribution of Waimaha mother-tongue speakers in East Timor

The classification of Waimoa is unclear. Structurally, it is Malayo-Polynesian. However, its vocabulary is largely Papuan, similar to that of Makasae. Although generally classified as Austronesian languages or dialects that have been largely relexified under the influence of a language related to Makasae, it is possible that Waimoa, Kairui, and Midiki are instead Papuan languages related to Makasae which have been influenced by Austronesian.

Phonology

Similarly to other Austronesian languages of the region,[2] Waimoa has aspirated/voiceless and glottalized/ejective consonants, which are distributed like /hC/ and /ʔC/ consonant clusters (or perhaps /Ch/ and /Cʔ/) but are often pronounced as single segments.[3]

Waimoa plosives
BilabialCoronalVelarGlottal
Voiceless unaspirated tkʔ
Voiceless aspirated pʰtʰkʰ
Voiceless ejective pʼ ~ pˀtʼ ~ tˀkʼ ~ kˀ
Voiced plain bdɡ

Similarly there are voiceless and glottalized /m n l r s w/.

There is also vowel harmony.

See also

References
  1. Waimoa at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon
  2. Naueti, Midiki, Meto, Helong, etc.
  3. Kirsten Culhane (2021) Waimaʼa consonants: phonology and typological position in Greater Timor. 15th International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics.
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