| Bunak | |
| States: | Indonesia, East Timor |
| Region: | central Timor |
| Speakers: | 76,000 |
| Ethnicity: | Bunak |
| Date: | 2010 |
| Ref: | e18 |
| Familycolor: | Papuan |
| Fam1: | Trans–New Guinea ? |
| Fam2: | Berau Gulf |
| Fam3: | West Bomberai[1] |
| Fam4: | Timor–Alor–Pantar |
| Minority: | East Timor |
| Iso3: | bfn |
| Glotto: | buna1278 |
| Glottorefname: | Bunak |
| Map: | Bunak.png |
| Mapcaption: | Distribution of Bunak in East Timor (West Timor not shown) |
The Bunak language (also known as Bunaq, Buna, Bunake, pronounced pronounced as /[bunaʔ]/) is the language of the Bunak people of the mountainous region of central Timor, split between the political boundary between West Timor, Indonesia, particularly in Lamaknen District and East Timor. It is one of the few on Timor which is not an Austronesian language, but rather a Papuan language of the Timor–Alor–Pantar language family. The language is surrounded by Malayo-Polynesian languages, like Uab Meto and Tetum.
Bunak distinguishes between animate and inanimate noun classes.[2]
| Plosive/ Affricate | voiceless | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| voiced | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| Fricative | voiceless | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| voiced | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| Nasal | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||
| Trill | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| Lateral | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| Approximant | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| High | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mid | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
| Low | pronounced as /link/ |
Pronouns seem to tie Bunak more closely to the Alor–Pantar languages, in a group Ross (2005) calls "West Timor", than with the Papuan East Timor languages. The independent pronouns and object prefixes, which appear to retain the proto-Trans–New Guinea dual suffix *-li, are as follows:
| singular | dual | plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st person | exclusive | ne-to n- | ne-li n- | ne-i n- |
| inclusive | i-li ∅- | i ∅- | ||
| 2nd person | e-to ∅- | e-li ∅- | e-i ∅- | |
| 3rd person | animate | himo g- | – | hala'i g- |
| inanimate | homo | |||