Welaun language

{{Infobox language

|name=Welaun

|altname=Bekais, Wekais

|states=Indonesia, East Timor

|speakers=2,000-5,575

|dateprefix=ca.

|date=2006/2019

|ref=Cunningham, Ingram, & Sumbuk, 2006. Language Diversity in the Pacific: Endangerment And Survival, p. 122

|familycolor=Austronesian

|fam2=Malayo-Polynesian

|fam3=Central–Eastern

|fam4=Timoric

|fam5=Tetumic

|minority=East Timor

|iso3=wlh

|glotto=wela1235

|glottorefname=Welaun

|map=Bekais.png

|mapcaption=Distribution of Welaun (Bekais) in East Timor (West Timor not shown)

}}

Welaun (also known as Bekais or Wekais) is an Austronesian language spoken on the border of East Timor and West Timor (a part of Indonesia). It is closely related to Tetun.Hull, Geoffrey. 1998. "The basic lexical affinities of Timor's Austronesian languages: a preliminary investigation." Studies in Languages and Cultures of East Timor 1:97-202.

Previous studies

Welaun was documented by Hull (2003)Hull, Geoffrey. 2003. Lia-Bekais nia Fatin iha Dalen-Lubun Tim´or. Studies in Languages and Cultures of East Timor 5:55–78. (In Tetun Dili.) and Edwards (2019). Edwards (2019) estimates a speaker population of 5,575.Edwards, Owen (2019). Reintroducing Welaun. Oceanic Linguistics, Volume 58, Number 1, June 2019, pp. 31-58. {{doi|10.1353/ol.2019.0002}} {{hdl|1887/79038|hdl-access=free}} A dictionary of Welaun has been written by da Silva (2012).da Silva, Eng. Guilherme ‘Puru-Berliku’. 2012. Disionáriu Wekais-Tetun. Dili: Secretaria de Estado da Cultura.

Phonology

class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;" \|+ 13 consonants ! colspan="2" \| ! Labial ! Alveolar ! Velar ! Glottal
colspan="2" \| Nasal \| {{IPA link\|m}} \| {{IPA link\|n}} \| \|
rowspan="2" \| Plosive ! {{small\|voiceless}} \| \| {{IPA link\|t}} \| {{IPA link\|k}} \| rowspan="2" \| {{IPA link\|ʔ}}
{{small\|voiced}} \| {{IPA link\|b}} \| {{IPA link\|d}} \|
colspan="2" \| Fricative \| {{IPA link\|f}} \| {{IPA link\|s}} \| \| {{IPA link\|h}}
colspan="2" \| Approximant \| \| {{IPA link\|l}} \| \| {{IPA link\|w}}
colspan="2" \| Trill \| \| {{IPA link\|r}} \| \|

class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"

|+ 13 consonants

! colspan="2" |

! Labial

! Alveolar

! Velar

! Glottal

colspan="2" | Nasal

| {{IPA link|m}}

| {{IPA link|n}}

rowspan="2" | Plosive

! {{small|voiceless}}