The Bunak (also known as Bunaq, Buna', Bunake) live in the mountainous region of central Timor, split between the political boundary between West Timor, Indonesia and East Timor. They are one of the ethnic groups on Timor which do not speak an Austronesian language, but rather a Papuan language like groups on New Guinea. It is usually put in the proposed language group Trans-New Guinea. They are surrounded by groups which speak Malayo-Polynesian languages, like the Atoni and the Tetum. Map of Timor Timor Island from space, November 1989 (North is to the bottom of the image). ... Map of Timor (island only) West Timor is a political region that comprises the western half of Timor island with the exception of Oecussi-Ambeno district (which is politically part of East Timor) and forms a part of the Indonesian province of Nusa Tenggara Timur, (NTT or East Nusa Tenggara). ... The Austronesian languages are a family of languages widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia. ... The term Papuan languages refers to those languages of the western Pacific which are neither Austronesian nor Australian. ... Trans-New Guinea is a family of languages spoken mainly in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. ... The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages. ... Tetum (also written as Tetun) is the national language of East Timor. ...
According to Languages of the World (Voegelin and Voegelin 1977), there were about 100,000 speakers, split evenly between the two nations.
Literature
Louis Berthe, Bei Gua: Itinéraire des ancêtres, Paris, 1972.
Claudine Friedberg, Boiled Woman and Broiled Man: Myths and Agricultural Rituals of the Bunaq of Central Timor, Edited James J. Fox, The Flow of Life. Essays on Eastern Indonesia, Harvard University Press, 1980.
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