Bunak (Gai'), spoken in the districts of Bobonaro, Lalotoc, Tilômar, Zumalai, Cassa, Betano and Same in south-western East Timor, is unintelligible to speakers of the neighbouring Austronesian languages. Along the south coast many Bunak and Belunese (Tetun-Belu) speaking communities co-exist. Modern Bunak is now greatly differentiated from Makasai and Fataluku because of isolation and a stronger Austronesian influence.
 
Bunak words have a highly eroded structure, many of them reduced to a single syllable; for example the Bomberaian word for 'dog', rendered as iparu in Fataluku and defa in Makasai, is reduced to zap in Bunak. The vocabulary of Bunak and its western dialect Marae is very mixed and contains words which are apparently aboriginal (i.e. pre-Papuan) and Timoric words, as well as the usual borrowings from Malay and Portuguese.
 
Numerals 1-10:
 
Bobonaro dialect:  uen, hiro-on, goni-on, goni-il, goni-ciet, thomor, hicu, walu, siwe, sogo
Zumalai dialect: wen, hili-on, goni-on, goni-il, goinseet, temol, hitu, alu, sie, sego
Marae dialect of Indonesian Timor:  uwen, hile-on, koni-on, koni-il, koni-tiet,
tomol, hitu, walu, siwe, soko

Source: The Languages of East Timor: Some Basic Facts (Geoffrey Hull, 2004): http://www.shlrc.mq.edu.au/~leccles/langs.html

• lang-resource-map-bunak_1.doc