Amarasi language

Amarasi is a Malayo-Polynesian language with strong Melanesian roots, and additional Dutch and Portuguese influences. It belongs to a language group known as Timoric (sometimes Timor-Babar) that includes all the languages spoken on the island of Timor, as well as the nearby islands of Wetar and Babar. The most common languages in the Timor-Babar language group are Uab Meto (previously known as Dawan) on the western half of the island, and Tetum on the eastern half of the island. These languages have over a million speakers between them. Most Timoric languages are separated into east and west because of the island's conflicted colonial history beginning in the early 16th century.[3]

In 1998, Australian linguist Geoffrey Hull classified Amarasi as a dialect of Uab Meto, rather than its own separate language.[3] However, beginning in the mid-2000s, as linguists began to study the differences between Uab Meto and its "dialects," it was understood that there was low mutual intelligibility between the Uab Meto varieties, due mostly to vastly differing grammar structures and foreign language influences (such as Dutch and Portuguese in Amarasi), and so many linguists now recognize the Uab Meto varieties to be independent languages belonging to a common Uab Meto language chain.

Written Amarasi uses Latin script, with letters that are identical to Indonesian in terms of pronunciation, with the addition of the glottal stop /ʔ/ written as an apostrophe ⟨'⟩.[2]

c, d, l, q, v, w, x, y and z are only used in loanwords and foreign names.

Amarasi contains 13 consonants and 5 vowels.[2]

The following phonotactics rules indicate the typical form of Amarasi words, however, due to the presence of many village dialects and an abundance of loan words, at least one notable exception exists for almost every case.

• Any consonant can appear at the beginning, end, or in the middle of a word, with the exception of /d͡ʒ/ and /ɡ/ which appear only in the middle of words, and are mostly seen in loan words.
• Amarasi is characterized by unusual, sometimes unique, consonant clusters. Consonant clusters contain no more than two consonants, which cannot be the same if the cluster is beginning a word. Consonants may appear in any order in a cluster, with the exception of /ʔ/, which must occupy the first position; and /h/ and /r/ which must not occupy the first position.

• Because there are several single-consonant prefixes (the most common being /ʔ-/, /t-/, /m-/, and /n-/) and the restriction against a three-consonant cluster beginning a word, the vowel /a/ is often used as a "buffer" between the prefix and the word-initial consonant cluster. Single-consonant prefixes attach to words beginning with a single consonant with no additional morphological rules.

Almost all vowels in Amarasi can be found in pairs in either order, except in the case of a high vowel followed by a mid vowel. Sequences of more than two vowels do not occur in Amarasi.

Diphthongs have not been conclusively studied in Amarasi and with one exception, any phonemic variation caused by a diphthong seems to be accidental in speech. The exception to this is a diphthong consisting of the allophone /a/ followed by a high vowel (most commonly /au/ and /ai/) which is consistently realized as a schwa /ə/.

Amarasi is a variant on Uab Meto, the language spoken by the geographically and socially adjacent Atoni people, and share many basic vocabulary words. The main difference between the two languages is that Amarasi lacks the complex grammar and spatial symbolism that Uab Meto is defined by.[11] Another significant difference is that most of the languages in the Uab Meto language chain contain the phoneme /l/, but Amarasi is unique in that all instances of /l/ are replaced with the phoneme /r/.[2]

Numerals follow the noun when describing quantity:

Because of the significance of corn to Amarasi culture and livelihood, several different counting systems were developed specifically for counting corn. The three systems use the same words for the bundling and storage processes, but use different base systems for counting. Soi' tain nima is the standard method and uses base 10, soi' tain ne'e is the "lazy system" and uses base 8, and tu'us bo'es am nua is the "modest system" and uses base 12. Because the systems are in different bases, the largest unit of corn while it is in storage, rean es, has a different value in each system. For example, the standard rean es has 400 ears of corn in it, but the "lazy" rean es has only 384, while the "modest" rean es has 480 ears. The following chart shows the amount of corn in each level of storage across the three systems.

These counting systems serve multiple purposes. The "lazy system" is not only used to hide laziness, but also to avoid being pitied for having a bad crop. The "modest system" is used not only for modesty, but also for protection, if one thinks that one might be robbed. With these systems, three different farmers could claim to have one rean without the others knowing exactly how many he means. This system would cause a problem if the corn needed to be sold, but Amarasi do not sell the corn they grow. Instead, they preserve it, store it in the ceiling, and the mother of the household rations it out throughout the year, as she is the only one who is allowed to retrieve the corn once it has been stored.[12]

Amarasi uses a subject–object–verb sentence structure, similar to many other Austronesian languages. Amarasi shares a trait with many other Austronesian languages in the form of prepositional verbs, or verb-like prepositions. The Amarasi verb natuin 'to follow' can imply a direction or location ('follow along the coast'), a person ('follow me'), causation ('because of this, it follows that...'), and can even take the form of a conjunction ('because'/cuz').[13]

In 2007, The Seed Company and the Australian branch of Wycliffe Bible Translators International published a complete Amarasi-language New Testament Bible. Since 99.1% of the Amarasi people are either Catholic or Protestant (the next most common religion among the Amarasi is Islam, which .3% of the population practices),[7] there was a great need and desire for the Bible to be available in their native language. Work on the Amarasi bible began in 2005, when Amarasi was officially declared its own language instead of a dialect of Uab Meto. The Amarasi Bible was translated to the Amarasi language directly from Greek, rather than from the Indonesian Bible, as is the custom of most modern Bible translation agencies. The Amarasi Bible also "follows the principles of meaning-based translation, rather than form-based translation," which aids in understanding and avoids misinterpretation that could occur if the Bible had been literally translated word-for-word. This style of translation preserves the original meaning of the Greek, while making it significantly easier for everyday Amarasi people to understand.[14]

• Amarasi Bible
• Alphabet and pronunciation