Bunak people

Bunak people
Bunaq / Buna' / Bunake / Búnaque / Búnaque / Mgal / Gaiq / G Eq / Gai / Marae
Holy House in Fatuc Laran, Lactos, Cova Lima District, East Timor where 90% of the population are Bunak people.
Total population
76,000[1]
Regions with significant populations
Timor:
 East Timor55,837 (2010)[2]
 Indonesia (West Timor)23,000[3]
Languages
Bunak, Indonesian, Kupang Malay, Tetum, Portuguese
Religion
Animism (originally), Catholic (predominantly)
Related ethnic groups
Papuan people

The Bunak (also known as Bunaq, Buna', Bunake) people are an ethnic group that live in the mountainous region of central Timor, split between the political boundary between West Timor, Indonesia, particularly in Lamaknen District and East Timor.[4] Their language is one of those on Timor which is not an Austronesian language, but rather a Papuan language, belonging to the Trans–New Guinea linguistic family.[5] They are surrounded by groups which speak Malayo-Polynesian languages, like the Atoni and the Tetum.

According to Languages of the World (Voegelin and Voegelin, 1977), there were about 100,000 speakers of the language, split evenly between the two nations.

  1. ^ "Bunak". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
  2. ^ Catharina Williams-van Klinken & Rob Williams (2015). "Mapping the mother tongue in Timor-Leste: Who spoke what where in 2010?" (PDF). Dili Institute of Technology. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-07-11. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
  3. ^ "Bunak people in Indonesia". Joshua Project. Retrieved 2014-09-16.
  4. ^ M. Junus Melalatoa (1995). Ensiklopedi Suku Bangsa di Indonesia Jilid L-Z. Direktorat Jenderal Kebudayaan. OCLC 1027453789.
  5. ^ Antoinette Schapper. "What is it to be Papuan? Bunak: a non-Austronesian language of Eastern Indonesia". Research Gate. Retrieved 2015-01-19.

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