Kafoa language

Kafoa
Jafoo, Habollat[1]
Native to	Indonesia
Region	Alor Island, East Nusa Tenggara
Ethnicity	Kafoa
Native speakers	1,000 (2013)[2]
Language family	Trans–New Guinea ? West Bomberai ? Timor–Alor–Pantar Alor–Pantar Alor ? Kafoa
Language codes
ISO 639-3	kpu
Glottolog	kafo1240

Kafoa, also known as Jafoo or Habollat,^[1] is a Papuan language of Alor Island in the Alor archipelago of Indonesia. Although Kafoa speakers refer to both themselves and their language with the name "Kafoa", this word is not well known in the area.^[3][4] Kafoa speakers are frequently multilingual, also speaking Alor Malay, Klon, and Abui, also Indonesian as the national language. Children are typically initially taught Alor Malay by their parents and later acquire Kafoa after having reached school age.^[3]

Phonology

The data in this section are taken from Baird (2017).^[3]

Consonants

Consonant phonemes

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n		ŋ ⟨ng⟩
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		k
	voiced	b	d		ɡ
Fricative		f	s			h
Semivowel		w		j ⟨y⟩
Liquid	lateral		l
	rhotic		r

Vowels

Vowel phonemes

	Front		Central		Back
High	i	iː			u	uː
				ʊ	ʊː
						o
Mid
	ɛ	ɛː				ɔː
Low			a	aː

External links

• Kafoa untuk Selamanya (Indonesian-language film)
• Kafoa Archived 2019-08-06 at the Wayback Machine at The Language Archive

References

1. Patji, A.R. (2014). Bahasa, Kebudayaan, dan Pandangan, Tentang Kebahasaan Masyarakat Etnik (Lokal) Kafoa di Alor Nusa Tenggara Timur (1st ed.). Jakarta: LIPI Press. ISBN 978-979-799-775-5.
2. "UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in danger". www.unesco.org. Retrieved 2018-06-06.
3. Baird, Louise (2017). "Kafoa". In Schapper, Antoinette (ed.). The Papuan Languages of Timor, Alor and Pantar: Volume 2. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 55–108.
4. Kafoa at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)