Kei

The Kei language (Veveu Evav or Veu Evav) is a language belonging to the Austronesian language family. It is spoken by the Kei people—individuals who originate from the Kei Islands or who identify as indigenous to the 207 villages located on the islands of Kei Kecil, Kei Besar, and their surrounding islets. Residents of the islands of Kur and Kamear speak the Kur language, while the inhabitants of the villages of Banda Eli (Wadan El) and Banda Elat (Wadan Ilat) on Kei Besar speak the Banda language.

These groups are believed to have migrated from the Banda Islands and have preserved their ancestral languages; however, they are also proficient in the Kei language, which serves as the *lingua franca* throughout the archipelago.

Each island—and indeed, each settlement (*ohoi*)—possesses its own distinct dialect. Consequently, these dialects often serve as indicators of a speaker's place of origin (such as their specific village, island, or region within the Kei Islands). The Kei people do not have an indigenous tradition of reading and writing. Catholic missionaries from the Netherlands documented the Kei language using a variation of the Roman alphabet.

From Wikipedia · Kei language · CC BY-SA 4.0