Blagar language

Blagar
pi abaŋ hur
Native toIndonesia
RegionPantar Island
EthnicityBlagar
Native speakers
10,000 (2014)
Latin script
Language codes
ISO 639-3beu
Glottologblag1240
ELPBlagar
Languages of the Alor Islands; Blagar is shown in yellow.

Blagar is a Papuan language of Pantar island in the Alor archipelago of Indonesia. The Tereweng dialect spoken on Tereweng Island off the southeast coast of Pantar is sometimes considered a separate language. The Blagar speakers themselves describe their language as pi abaŋ hur (lit. 'our village language').

The increasing prominence of Indonesian and Alor Malay has been putting pressure on the Blagar language although the language is still used by all age groups. By the 1970s, Indonesian and Alor Malay replaced Blagar as the language of churches and mosques, and in the early 2000s the spread of Indonesian and Alor Malay was furthered by the introduction of electricity on Pura Island.

Phonology

Vowels

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

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

Consonants

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

The morphological typology of Blagar is categorized as isolating.

Writing system

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

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/
Digraphs ngsy
IPA /ŋ//ʃ/

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

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

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. 1 2 3 4 "Blagar alphabet, pronunciation [sic] and language". Omniglot. Retrieved 2018-06-27.
  4. 1 2 3 Steinhauer 2014, p. 149.
  5. ↑ Steinhauer 2010, p. 275.
  6. 1 2 Steinhauer 2014, p. 150.
  7. ↑ Steinhauer 2014, p. 152.
  8. ↑ Steinhauer 1977, p. 39.
  9. ↑ Steinhauer & Gomang 2016, pp. xix–xx.

Bibliography