Rusenu language

Spoken in

Unpaid

• Rusenu

-

-

Rusenu is an extinct language that was spoken in the extreme east Timor.

Background

In his research on the East Timorese language Makuva the Dutch linguist Aone van Engelshoven discovered in 2007 Notes on the hitherto unknown to science language Rusenu. Van Engelshoven was shortly before his return, as he was told of a language called Rusenu, only a woman of about eighty years, knew something of the. Van Engelshoven then gave his informant with a recording device. The woman knew a children's song in Rusenu, but it could not translate. Her son could count to ten in the language. Van Engelshoven documented and analyzed the recording and came to the conclusion that Rusenu distantly related to the Papuan language Fataluku used in the region, however, was but an independent language. But perhaps it is also an Austronesian language.

Van Engelshoven speculated further that the Rusenu spokesman had asked the indigenous people of the region and also the creator of several thousand year old cave paintings of Ile Kere Kere are. If Rusenu have been an Austronesian language, it would at least support the recent hypothesis that Austronesians populated this region of Papua.