Detecting Papuan Loanwords in Alorese: Combining Quantitative and Qualitative Methods

Abstract

Alorese is an Austronesian language spoken on the coasts of the Alor and Pantar archipelago. Since their arrival on the archipelago about 600 years ago, the Alorese speakers have been in contact with speakers of the local Alor-Pantar (AP) languages, which belong to the (Papuan) Timor-Alor-Pantar (TAP) family. Previous studies on AP lexical influence on Alorese seem to indicate that the amount of AP loanwords is limited. In this paper, we research whether this observation applies beyond the core vocabulary by extending the data to a 596-concept list, including all 13 Alorese dialects. In order to detect borrowing events, an algorithm was used to sift loanwords out of a huge lexical pool containing approximately 66,000 word forms from 55 Austronesian languages and 42 TAP languages. The results show that the percentage of AP loanwords in Alorese is approximately 4.7 %. This limited lexical influence is accounted for by the asymmetric bilingualism patterns and by the presence of several L1s interfering with each other. Yet, the AP loanwords can inform us about the type of contact between the Alorese and AP speakers, which revolved around agriculture and vegetation (digging stick, garden, rattan, root, taro), the physical world (coral rock, mud, gravel), animals (dolphin, monitor lizard), and basic actions and technology (fish trap, bed, to fold, to pull, to wash).