Fataluku

Fataluku is a Papuan (or 'non-Austronesian') language spoken in Lospalos and elsewhere in the easternmost district of East Timor. There are approximately 30,000 speakers.

There is not much dialectal variation. Fataluku is related to Makasai (Makasae) and Makalero, and also to the Oirata language spoken on the island of Kisar in Indonesia.

Some characteristics of the language

There are no voiced stops ('b', 'd', and 'g') in the native vocabulary, although they can appear in loanwords, such as the place name Dili.

Fataluku has a pitch accent system. Every content word (noun or verb) has an accent associated with either the first or second syllable.

There is a process of consonant mutation, in which a word-initial f changes into p, and a t or h into c (a palatal stop). For example: fa'i ~ pa'i  "to do", or: taia ~ caia  "to sleep".

Many nouns end in u, and verbs (including adjectives) in e. However, these endings often disappear, especially in the Lospalos dialect. For example: iparu ~ ipar  "dog", or: kapare ~ kapar  "bad".

An object precedes the verb. For example, ira tutu (water drink) is "to drink water".