Bunak language
The Bunak language is the language of the Bunak people of the mountainous region of central Timor, split between the political boundary between West Timor, Indonesia, particularly in Lamaknen District and East Timor. It is one of the few on Timor which is not an Austronesian language, but rather a Papuan language, presumably belonging to the Trans–New Guinea language family. The language is surrounded by Malayo-Polynesian languages, like Uab Meto and Tetum.
Bunak distinguishes between animate and inanimate noun classes.Pronouns seem to tie Bunak more closely to the Alor–Pantar languages, in a group Ross calls "West Timor", than with the Papuan East Timor languages. The independent pronouns and object prefixes, which appear to retain the proto-Trans–New Guinea dual suffix *-li, are as follows:
