Kei language

Kei is an Austronesian language spoken in a small region of the Moluccas, a province of Indonesia.

Geography

Keiese is mainly spoken in the Kei archipelago in Maluku Tenggara, belonging to the province of Maluku, Indonesia. It has a population of around 140.000 people, half of which lives in the only two cities, Tual and Langgur: respectively the Islamic and Christian capitals of the archipelago. Both cities belong to the Kei Kecil district. The other half of the population lives in the coastal villages of the archipelago.

Classification

Keiese is an Austronesian language, traditionally grouped in the Central Malayo-Polynesian language family that knows several subgroups, one of which is the Kei-Tanimbar languages. This tiny family splits up one more time into Yamdena-Onin and Kei-Fordata, the latter of which contains Keiese. The main dialects are the Northern and Southern Mainland dialects, spoken on Kei Besar, and the Islands Dialect, spoken on the other islands. The Islands Dialect has some sub dialects, of which the Kei Kecil dialect has the most speakers and prestige. All grammatical descriptions in this article are derived from the Kei Kecil dialect.

Name

Keiese is referred to with different names derived from at least three backgrounds. Kei is assumed to be coined by Portuguese colonists. They called it stone for its rocky bottom. However, whereas the most inhabited island is indeed a rocky atoll, the biggest island of the archipelago is a fertile volcanic island. Dutch missionaries would call the language Keiees. Indonesians know the language today as Bahasa Kei/Kai, always pronounced as. Ethnologue mentions a second way to refer to the language: Saumlaki. Saumlaki is a small island that belongs to the Tanimbar archipelago, of which its languages are not proven to be directly historically related to Kei. The third way to talk about the language is in the language itself. The pronunciation is best transcribed as, which cannot be translated for simply being a proper name. Spellings that are used by scholars are Eiwav, Eivav, Ewaw, Ewab, Ewaf, Evav, Ewav and Evaf, for it is arguable whether the two consonants are phonemically distinct or not.

Status

It is difficult to estimate the number of speakers of Keiese. According to Ethnologue, the number lies around 85,000, out of a total of 140,000 inhabitants. In 1985, Tetelepta et al. wrote that the total number of Keiese speakers in the two capitals of Kei Kecil and the capital of Kei Besar was 12,353 people. It is likely that this number must be doubled when including the speakers in coastal villages. Ma Kang Yuen, however, who studied the language in 154 villages on Kei Kecil for several years in the first decade of the 21st century, claims to have never met a fluent speaker. This was later confirmed by Yuri Villa Rikkers, who visited the archipelago for a brief linguistic study in 2014.

Linguistic features

Phonology

Keiese knows approximately 16 consonants, 8 vowels and 4 diphthongs. The Keiese people have not yet concluded on an official spelling system.

Consonants		Vowels and Diphthongs
Phoneme	Allophones	Phoneme	Allophones
			,,

			,
			,
			,

			,,
			,
	,
	,

	,		,
		-	-
		-	-
		-	-
		-	-

As is common among Austronesian languages, consonant clusters are usually avoided. Word stress is usually found on the last syllable.

Verbal inflection

Verbal inflection in Keiese is about agreement marking on the verb, based on the person and number of the subject of a sentence. These subjects may be formed by nouns or by free personal pronouns that know a clusivity distinction as is common in Austronesian languages.
They each correspond to a verbal prefix.
The sentences below show how these forms combine.
First person singular
Second person singular
Third person singular
First person plural
First person plural
Second person plural
'''Third person plural'''

Possession

Keiese discriminates between alienable and unalienable nouns by using different strategies to express possession. Alienable nouns select possessive pronouns.

Person/number	Prefix	Person/number	Prefix
1SG	nɪŋ~nuŋ	1PL	did~din
2SG	mu	2PL	bir
3SG	ni	3PL	rir
1PL	mam'

For example, 'my boat' must be translated as nɪŋ habo, for boats may have different owners at different times. Unalienable nouns select possessive suffixes.

Person/number	Suffix	Example	Meaning
1SG	-ŋ	limaŋ	'my hand'
2SG	-m	limam	'your hand'
3SG	-n	liman	'the/its/his/her hand'
1PL	-b	limab	'our hand'
1PL	-d	limad	'our hand'
2PL	-b	limab	'your hand'
3PL	-r	limar	'their hand'

Numerals

The numeral system uses numeral roots that combine with both numeral classifiers and autonomous numerals. The numeral roots are given below.

Root	Meaning	Root	Meaning
ain	'one'	nean~nɛan~nɛ:n	'six'
ru	'two'	fit~fid	'seven'
til~tɪl~tel	'three'	ʋau~wau	'eight'
fak~fa:k	'four'	siw	'nine'
lim~lɪm	'five'

The formation of numbers is illustrated in the table below.

Range	Structure	Illustration	Meaning
1	CLF-	ain	1
2-9	CLF-NR	ainru	2
10	-NR	vut	10
10+x	NUM-CLF-NR	vut ainmehe	11
10*x	NUM-NR	vutfak	40
10*x+x	NUM-NR-CLF-NR	vutnean ainnean	66
100+x	NUM-CLF-NR	ratut ainru	102
100+10*x	NUM-NUM-NR	ratut vutfak	140
100+10*x+x	NUM-NUM-NR-CLF-NR	ratut vuttil ainru	132
100*x	NUM-NR	ratlim	500
100*x+x	NUM-NR-CLF-NR	ratru ainru	202
100x+10x	NUM-NR-NUM-NR	ratnean vutfak	640
100x+10x+x	NUM-NR-NUM-NR-CLF-NR	ratru vuttil ainru	232

Grammars and sketches

Engelenhoven, A. van. submitted. Dressed, undressed or both: the case of Ewaw in Southeast Maluku. In Isolating word structure in Austronesian languages, ed. by David Gil, John McWhorter & Scott Pauw.
Farfar, J.J. 1959. Bahasa Kai: sedikit tentang bahasa Kai di pulau-pulau Kai . Medan Bahasa IX: 44-47.
Geurtjens, H. 1921a. Spraakleer der Keieesche taal. Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen, Weltevreden Albrecht & Co.
Hageman, Dany. 2004. Derivationele morfologie van het Ewaw, MA Thesis at Leiden University.
Hungan, A.J. 1990. Perkembangan lagu-lagu bahasa Kei dalam upacara agama Katolik. IN DEMy Resusun, et al., Hasil seminar Masa Lalu dan Masa Depan Bahasa Kei.
Kusters, P., S.J. n.d. Keieesch Woordenboek. Koekdruk. Year unknown
Tetelepta, J., et al. 1982. Bahasa Kei. Ambon: Proyek Penilitian Bahasa dan Sastera Indonesia dan Daerah Maluku.
Tetelepta, J., et al. 1985. Struktur bahasa kei. Jakarta: Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengembangan Bahasa, Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan .
Travis, E., 1990. Ejaan bahasa Kei. in Resusun, D., et al. 1990.
Travis, E. 1990-MS. The Kei language: a proposed orthography. Ambon: UNPATTI-SIL.
Travis, E. 1987-MS. Perbendaharaan kata bahasa Kei dengan arti dalam bahasa Indonesia. Ambon: UNPATTI-SIL.
Travis, E., 1990 MS. The Kei language: a phonological description. Ambon: UNPATTI-SIL.
Travis, E. 1991-MS. Pedoman umum ejaan bahasa Kei . General guide to Kei ] Ambon: UNPATTI-SIL.
Travis, E. 1990. Sistem tulisan bahasa Kei. IN DEMy Resusun, et al., Hasil seminar Masa Lalu dan Masa Depan Bahasa Kei.
Vliegen, MSC. n.d. Keieesch woordenboek . .
Villa Rikkers, Y. 2014. Topics in Evaf Morphology: a Comparative Analysis of Inflectional Categories in an Austronesian Language of the Southeast Moluccas. Universiteit Leiden.
Unknown author. 1968, Tatabahasa Bahasa Kei , based on Geurtjens.

Dictionaries and word lists

Eijbergen, H.C. van,. 1865. Korte woordenlijst van de taal der Aroe- en Kei-Eilanden. . Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 14:557-568.
Geurtjens, H. 1921b. Woordenlijst der Keieesche taal, Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen, Weltevreden Albrecht & Co.
Geurtjens, H., Nieuwenhuis, A. 1940. '. ms. .
Kusters, J.D. 1895. Woordenlijsten van de Kei-eilanden, IN Woordenlijsten van talen der Molukken, opgenomen in de handschriften-verzameling van het Bataviaasch Genootschap. Not. Bat. Gen., XXXIII, p45.
Nieuwenhuis, A. 1940 '. ms. 200p.
Nieuwenhuis, A. 1948. . ms. .
Royen, A. van. 1985. Woordenlijst Nederlands-Keiees A-K, K-Z. .
Rugebregt, J.F. et al. 1983. Inventarisasi bahasa daerah Maluku. Ambon: Proyek Penelitian Bahasa dan Sastra Indonesia dan Daerah Maluku.
Yuen, M.K.. 2012. Kamus Bahasa Kei – Indonesia .
Unknown author. 1930, Bijvoeging der Kei woordenlijsten
Unknown author and year. Kamus Belanda-Kei,
Unknown author and year. Kata-kata Bahasa Kei dan Aru

Stories, songs and other vernacular material

Geurtjens, H. 1924. Keieesche Legenden. Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen, Weltevreden Albrecht & Co.
Gieben, C. 1984. Muziek en Dans. Spelletjes en Kinderliedjes v.d. Molukken. .
Nooriyah, T. 1986. Si Katak. Penerbit C.v. Pionir Jaya: Bandung.
Ogi, L., ed. 1985. Buk siksikar I: kumpulan lagu-lagu bahasa daerah Maluku Tenggara. Tual: Seksi Kebudayaan, Kantor Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan Kabupaten Maluku Tenggara.
Pattikayhatu, Jon A., et al. 1983. Ungkapan tradisional daerah Maluku. Ambon: Proyek Inventarisasi dan Dokumentasi Kebudayaan Daerah.
Pragolapati, Ragil Suwarna. 1981. Ai ngam sorngai. PT Sumbangsih Kawanku and Penerbit Sinar Harapan: Jakarta.
Unknown author. 1910. Siksikar agam. .
Unknown author. 1986, 29 vernacular songs. Seksi Kebudayaan, Kantor Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan Kabupaten Maluku Tenggara: Tual.

Historical classification of Keiese

Adelaar, A. 2005. The Austronesian languages of Asia and Madagascar: a historical perspective. In Adelaar, A. and et al., The Austronesian Languages of Asia and Madagascar, 1-41. London &New York: Routledge.
Blust, R.A., 1977. The Proto-Austronesian pronouns and Austronesian subgrouping: a preliminary report. Working Papers in Linguistics, 9.2:1-15. Dept. Linguistics, University of Hawaii.
Blust, R.A., 1978. Eastern Malayo-Polynesian: a subgrouping argument. IN Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics, Fascicle 1. Pacific Linguistics C-61:181-234. Canberra: Australian National University.
Blust, R.A., 1990. Central and Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian. Paper presented at Maluku Research Conference, Honolulu.
Dyen, I., 1975. The lexicostatistical classification of the Malayopolynesian languages. Language 38: 38-46.
Dyen, I., 1978. The position of the languages of eastern Indonesia. In: Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics, Fascicle 1. Pacific Linguistics C-61: 235-254.
Hughes, Jock. 1987. The languages of Kei, Tanimbar and Aru: a lexicostatistic classification. IN Dardjowidjojo, Soenjono, Miscellaneous Studies of Indonesian and Other Languages in Indonesia, part IX, pp. 71–111. NUSA 27.
Ross, M. 2005. The Batanic Languages in Relation to the Early History of the Malayo-Polynesian Subgroup of Austronesian. Journal of Austronesian Studies 1. 1-23.
Tokjaur, J.J. 1972. Bahasa Kei selayang pandang di dalam rumpun Austronesia. skripsi sarjana muda.