Blagar language

Blagar is a Papuan language of Pantar island in the Alor archipelago of Indonesia. The Tereweng dialect spoken on Treweng Island off the southeast coast of Pantar[2] is sometimes considered a separate language.[3]

Blagar
Tereweng
Native toIndonesia
RegionPantar Island
Native speakers
10,000 (2014)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3Either:
beu – Blagar
twg – Tereweng
Glottologblag1240  Blagar
tere1277  Tereweng
ELPBlagar
Languages of the Alor Islands. Blagar is shown in yellow.

Use of the language is declining in favor of Indonesian.[4] In the 1970s Indonesian replaced Blagar as the language of the church and the mosque.[4] In the early 2000s the introduction of electricity on Pura Island further increased the influence of Indonesian.[4]

Phonology

Vowels

Blagar has five vowels, with a sharp contrast between short and long vowels.[4]

[4]
Front Back
Close /i/
/i:/		 /u/
/u:/
Mid /e/
/e:/		 /o/
/o:/
Open /a/
/a:/

Consonants
[4]
Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Plosive p   b t̪   d k   g ʔ
Implosive ɓ
Fricative s   z h
Nasal m n ŋ
Trill r
Lateral l
Approximant j

Grammar

Blagar is morphologically simple.[5] It has a limited number of pronouns, adverbs, particles, auxiliaries and clitics, but an unrestricted number of verbs and nouns.[5] Verbs can be transitive or intransitive, and nouns can be alienable or inalienable.[5] Nouns are placed before adjectives.[4]

Ne

1SG.POSS

koŋdo

shirt

boʔori.

yellow

Ne koŋdo boʔori.

1SG.POSS shirt yellow

My shirt is yellow.

Mehal

man

ʔaŋu

that

guru

teacher

niaŋ.

not

Mehal ʔaŋu guru niaŋ.

man that teacher not

That man is not a teacher.

ʔana

3SG.SBJ

naiŋ

1SG.OBJ

bue.

hit

ʔana naiŋ bue.

3SG.SBJ 1SG.OBJ hit

He/she hit me.

Na

1SG.SBJ

aiŋ

2SG.OBJ

bue

hit

niaŋ.

not

Na aiŋ bue niaŋ.

1SG.SBJ 2SG.OBJ hit not

I didn't hit you.

Na

1SG.SBJ

ne

1SG.POSS

mol

banana

veŋ

with

niaŋ.

not

Na ne mol veŋ niaŋ.

1SG.SBJ 1SG.POSS banana with not

I don't have a banana.

Questions

[4]

ʔ-ene

3SG-name

nuba?

who

ʔ-ene nuba?

3SG-name who

What's his/her name?

Id

star

ʔaŋa

this

ʔ-ene

3SG-name

naba?

what

Id ʔaŋa ʔ-ene naba?

star this 3SG-name what

What's the name of this star?

Vet

coconut

ʔaŋa

this

nuba

who

ʔe?

3SG.POSS

Vet ʔaŋa nuba ʔe?

coconut this who 3SG.POSS

Whose coconut is this?

Writing system

The Blagar language uses the 26 letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet, and has two digraphs: ⟨ng⟩ and ⟨sy⟩.

[3]
Uppercase letters ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Lowercase letters abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
IPA /a//b//t͡ʃ//d//e//f//g//h//i//d͡ʒ//k//l//m//n//o//p//k/, /q//r/~/ɾ//s//t//u//f/, /v//w//ks//j//s/, /z/
[3]
Digraphs ngsy
IPA /ŋ//ʃ/

⟨c⟩, ⟨q⟩, ⟨x⟩, ⟨z⟩ and ⟨sy⟩ are only used in foreign place names and loanwords.[3]

Another writing system is also used, which is phonemic and is similar to the writing system of Indonesian.[6]

Letters abb’deghijklmnngopqrtuvy
IPA /a//b//ɓ//d//e//g//h//i//ɟ/, /ɟ͡ʝ//k//l//m//n//ŋ//o//p//ʔ//r//t//u//w//j/

References
  1. "UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in danger". www.unesco.org. Retrieved 2018-06-06.
  2. "Tereweng". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2018-06-27.
  3. "Blagar alphabet, pronunciation [sic] and language". Omniglot. Retrieved 2018-06-27.
  4. Steinhauer, Hein (2014). "Blagar". In Schapper, Antoinette (ed.). The Papuan Languages of Timor, Alor and Pantar: Volume 1: Sketch Grammars. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 147–219. ISBN 9781614515241.
  5. H. Steinhauer. ""Going" and "Coming" in the Blagar of Dolap (Pura--Alor--Indonesia) 1)" (PDF). SEAlang. Retrieved 2018-06-28.
  6. Steinhauer, Hein; Gomang, Hendrik D.R. (2016). Kamus Blagar-Indonesia-Inggris: Blagar-Indonesian-English Dictionary. ISBN 978-602-433-356-0.

Further reading
  • Steinhauer, Hein; Gomang, Hendrik D.R. (2016). Kamus Blagar-Indonesia-Inggris: Blagar-Indonesian-English Dictionary. ISBN 978-602-433-356-0.
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