Waima'a

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Waima’a is an endangered Austronesian language from the world’s newest independent nation, Timor Lorosa’e (East Timor). Local tradition has it that the name Waima’a is derived from the words wai ‘water’ and ma’a ‘empty’. The Baucau plateau on which Waima’a is spoken is one of the driest regions in East Timor.

The primary focus of this documentation project is the village of Caisido, which is located about ten kilometres to the west of Baucau, East Timor’s second largest city (population ca. 20.000). The precise extent of the Waima’a speaking area and dialectal variation remain to be determined.

The Waima’a people are hemmed in by two much larger populations, namely the Makasae to the east, and the Galoli to the west. Speakers live in small hamlets which have populations of 50-100 people. As a relatively small cultural group, the Waima’a people have had a long history of interaction with speakers of other languages in the region.

The long interaction, especially with neighbouring Makasae speakers, has no doubt contributed to the typologically unusual nature of the Waima’a language (at least as far as Austronesian languages are concerned). Waima’a does have a fairly productive causative prefix (ra-), but apart from this prefix it is completely lacking in the typical verbal morphology found in other Austronesian languages, and the language is largely isolating.

While Waima’a morphology is far simpler than that encountered in typical Austronesian languages, its segmental phonology is much more complex than usual. The language has a four way stop distinction with voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, voiceless ejective and plain voiced series. Nasals, laterals and the labiovelar glide show a three way distinction between voiced, voiceless and glottalised phonemes and there is also a plain and a glottalised rhotic.