Kamang
[aka Woisika, Waisika, Kamana-Kamang]Classification: Timor-Alor-Pantar
·threatened
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Threatened
60 percent certain, based on the evidence available
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~6,000
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"The figure of 16,500 speakers given in the Ethnologue (Lewis 2009) is inflated. It subsumes several closely related languages under the label 'Kamang.' In actuality, the Kamang language, as designated by speakers and their neighbors and as clearly divisible on linguistic grounds, is limited to the northwestern area of the region marked as Kamang on the Ethnologue map."
- DATE OF INFO
- 2011
- TRANSMISSION
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- MORE ON VITALITY
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"Traditionally, the Kamang people lived in the central mountainous area of the island. However, during the 1970s many villages were compelled by Indonesian administrators to move down to the lower lying coastal areas. According to community elders, Kamang culture has been considerably eroded since resettlement. Today, the Kamang language is severely endangered. Kamang children and adolescents are rarely more than passive speakers of their language. Whilst parents and elders may speak amongst themselves in Kamang, child directed speech is typically in the local variety of Malay. In the several domestic settings I have observed, even where children are spoken to in Kamang, they invariably answer in Malay."
- OTHER LANGUAGES USED BY THE COMMUNITY
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Alor Malay