West Damar and the Dawe-Damar subgroup of Southwest Maluku

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First posted: 16 Jun 2014
Last revised: 24 Aug 2020

The West Damar language is spoken in the village of Batumerah on Damar Island, which is part of the Barat Daya island chain in Southwest Maluku. There are two sources for West Damar: Taber (1993) and Chlenova & Chlenov (2006).

In Taber's lexico-statistical classification of the Southwest Maluku languages, West Damar appears as an isolate, neither related to his version of a Southwest Maluku soubgroup, nor to the Babar subgroup. In a paper on the genetic affiliation of West Damar, Van Engelenhoven (2010) identified the Babar languages as the closest relatives of West Damar, mainly based on the following shared consonant reflexes: PMP *z > h, *s > d. Starting from this initial hypothesis, I will provide evidence here for the closest link of West Damar within the Babar languages, viz. with Dai and Dawera-Daweloor. These languages are spoken on three small islands located to the north of Babar. The subgroup comprising West Damar, Dai and Dawera-Daweloor will be called "Dawe-Damar" here. The main source for Dawera-Daweloor is Chlenova (2002). Taber (1993) contains data for Dai and Dawera-Daweloor.

Reflexes of Proto Southwest Maluku consonants

For Proto Dawe-Damar, we can find the following reflexes of Proto Southwest Maluku consonants (click here for a short overview of reflexes of PMP consonants in Proto Southwest Maluku):

Without change

PSWM

*p
*m
*t
*n
*ʔ
*l
*r

PDD

*p
*m
*t
*n
*ʔ
*l
*r

W. Damar

p
m
t
n
Ø
l
r

Daweloor

p
m
t
l
Ø
l
r

Dai

p
m
t
n
ʔ
n
r

PSB

*p
*m
*k
*n
Ø
*l
*r

One-to-one reflexes

*c

*h

h

Ø

h

*h

Mergers

*s/*d
*w/*v

*d
*w

d
w

d/r
w

d/r
w

*t
*w

Loss

*R

Ø

Ø

Ø

Ø

Ø

The following features are shared with the South Babar languages:

- Merger of *s and *d to Proto Dawe-Damar *d, Proto South Babar *t
- Weakening of *c to *h
- Complete loss of *R

The stop reflex of PSWM *s and its merger with *d is a unique feature of the Babar subgroup. The h-reflex of *c is also restricted to the Babar subgroup. The change *c > h must have gone through an intermediate stage **s after PSWM *s had become a stop. This is seen from borrowings from Luangic containing s, where s does not develop in the same way as PSWM *s, but instead has the same reflexes as PSWM *c, e.g. **mas "gold" (cf. Leti masa, Serua masu) > West Damar mah-o, Daweloor ma-ol or **kusa "cat" (Leti kusa) > West Damar kuha, Daweloor ku-ol.

Loss of *R is shared only with Teun among the Southwest Maluku languages. Reflexes of PSWM consonants thus provide the main piece of evidence for the inclusion of West Damar within the Babar subgroup.

Vowel reflexes in Dawe-Damar languages

Devoicing and fortition of final high vowels

One very particular feature of the Dawe-Damar languages is the devoicing and fortition of Proto Southwest Maluku *i and *u in word-final position. This fortition only affected a part of the vocabulary, regularly nouns with take a characteristic suffix in each Dawe-Damar language: Dai -on, Daweloor -ol, West Damar -o.

Final *i changed to s in all three languages, whereas final *u has a different reflex in each of the three languages: Dai ʔ, Daweloor k, West Damar x/h. For Proto Dawe-Damar, I reconstruct *x here. Van Engelenhoven correctly recognized the fortition rule for *u in West Damar, but surprisingly failed to identify West Damar s as regular reflex of final *i.

PMP

*duRi
*isi
*punti
*babuy
---
*baliw
*hapuy
*talih

*batu
*qitəluR
*kutu
*susu
*-mpu
*mangilu
*niuR

PSWM

*ruRi
*isi
*udi
*vavi
*pipi
*vali
*ai
*tali

*vatu
*teluR
*ʔutu
*susu
*upu
*mnilu
*nuR

PDD

*rus
*ids
*uds
*waws
*pips
*wals
*as
*tals

*watx
*telx
*utx
*dudx
*upx
*mlinx (Met.)
*nux

W. Damar

rus-o
iss-o
uss-o
wows-o
pips-o
wols-o
os-o
tols-o

woth-o
talh-o
uth-o
duth-o
uph-o
mlingx-o
nuh-o

Daweloor

rus-ol
irs-elol
urs-ol
waws-ol
pips-ol
alwans-ol
---
---

watk-ol
telk-ol
otk-ol
dudk-ol
upk-ol
mlilk
---

Dai

rus-on
irs-on
---
---
---
---
---
---

watʔ-on
tenʔ-enon
otʔ-on
dutʔ-on
---
---
---

Historically, we can assume that the final vowel became devoiced first and then underwent fortition to a fricative:

*i > *i̥ > *ç > *s
*u > *u̥ > *ʍ > *x.

The almost 100% agreement between West Damar and Dai/Daweloor in the treatment of final high vowels is the strongest piece of evidence for the Dawe-Damar subgroup, to the exclusion of North Damar and the South Babar languages.

Nouns with final *e, *a and monosyllabic nouns

The Dawe-Damar languages are important witness languages for the other final vowels in Proto SW Maluku, including zero for monosyllabic roots. The Dawe-Damar languages are the only Southwest Maluku languages which have kept distinct final *e, which in all other languages either merged with *a or *i. In Dai and Daweloor, it is reflected as y in nouns, whereas it has become zero in West Damar. Final *a is lost in Dai and Daweloor, but is retained in West Damar, blending with the noun-marking suffix -o into -a.

PSWM

*tur
*let

*mata
*Ruma

*ene
*tave

PDD

*tur
*let

*mata
*uma

*ene
*tave

W. Damar

tur-o
lat-o

mota
uma

en-o
tow-o

Daweloor

tur-ol
let-ol

mat-ol
um-ol

en-y-ol
tav-y-ol

Reflexes of final vowels in other word classes

With numerals and most verbs and adjectives, we find quite different reflexes of final vowels: in Dai in Daweloor, we have a general zero reflex, whereas in West Damar, the high vowels *u and *i have merged to i, while etyma with final *a and *e in PSWM have final o in West Damar. The vowel o also appears as supporting vowel on earlier closed monosyllabic roots, so we can reconstruct a zero reflex for final *a and *e in Proto Dawe-Damar.

PSWM

*telu
*tunu
*mori

*muta
*lima
*mate
*at
*-nis

PDD

*teli
*tuni
*mori

*mut
*lim
*mat
*at
*-nid

W. Damar

teli
tuni
mori

muto
limo
moto
oto
-nido

Daweloor

tel
tul
mor

mut
lim
mot
at
-lid

Vowels in closed ultimate position

The most straightforward evidence for the development of vowels in closed ultimate position comes from West Damar. Here, we find exactly the same reflexes as in Proto South Babar: *i and *u first merged into *i and then became subject to final metathesis and de-syllabification, resulting in y.

PMP

*inum
*hangin
*dingin
*kulit
*Ribu

PSWM

*inum
*anin
*rinin
*ʔulit
*rivu-n
*ʔapun
*(n)ivut

W. Damar

imnyo
onnyo
-rinnyo
ultyo
rivnyo
opnyo
niptyo

Note that the metathesized vowel is not subject to fortition.


Conclusion

The phonetic evidence as outlined above clearly supports the assumption that West Damar is a member of the Babar subgroup and most closely links up with Dai and Daweloor. As a next step for further research, lexical and grammatical evidence needs to be assessed.


References

Chlenova, Svetlana. 2002. Daweloor, a Southwest Moluccan language. In N. F. Alieva (ed.), Malaysko-indoneziyskiye issledovaniya, XV, 145-175. Moscow: Nusantara.

Chlenova, Svetlana F. and Mikhail A. Chlenov. 2006. West Damar Language or Damar-Batumerah, an Isolate in South-Eastern Indonesia. Paper Presented at the Tenth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics 17-20 January 2006 Palawan, Philippines.

Taber, Mark 1993. Toward a better understanding of the indigenous languages of southwestern Maluku. Oceanic Linguistics, 32:2, 389-441

Van Engelenhoven, Aone. 2010. Tentatively locating West-Damar among the languages of Southwest Maluku. In Chlenova, Svetlana and Fedorchuk, Artem (eds.), Studia Anthropologica: a Festschrift in Honor of Michael Chlenov, 297-326. Moscow-Jerusalem: Gesharim.