Waimoa language

Waimoa or Waimaʼa is a language spoken by about 27,000 (2015 census) people in northeast East Timor. Waimoa proper is reported to be mutually intelligible with neighboring Kairui and Midiki, which together have about 5,000 speakers.

Waimoa
Region	Northeast East Timor
Native speakers	21,200 (2015 census) 5,670 L2 speakers (2015 census)
Language family	Austronesian ? Malayo-Polynesian Central–Eastern Timoric Kawaimina Waimoa
Language codes
ISO 639-3	wmh
Glottolog	waim1252
ELP	Waimaʼa Waima'a
Distribution of Waimaha mother-tongue speakers in East Timor

The classification of Waimoa is unclear. Structurally, it is Malayo-Polynesian. However, its vocabulary is largely Papuan, similar to that of Makasae. Although generally classified as Austronesian languages or dialects that have been largely relexified under the influence of a language related to Makasae, it is possible that Waimoa, Kairui, and Midiki are instead Papuan languages related to Makasae which have been influenced by Austronesian.

Phonology

Similarly to other Austronesian languages of the region, Waimoa has aspirated/voiceless and glottalized/ejective consonants, which are distributed like /hC/ and /ʔC/ consonant clusters (or perhaps /Ch/ and /Cʔ/) but are often pronounced as single segments.

Waimoa plosives

	Bilabial	Coronal	Velar	Glottal
Voiceless unaspirated		t	k	ʔ
Voiceless aspirated	pʰ	tʰ	kʰ
Voiceless ejective	pʼ ~ pˀ	tʼ ~ tˀ	kʼ ~ kˀ
Voiced plain	b	d	ɡ

Similarly there are voiceless and glottalized /m n l r s w/.

There is also vowel harmony.

See also

• Kawaimina