Larantuka Malay

Larantuka Malay (bahasa Nagi, Melayu Larantuka), also known as Nagi, is a Malay-based creole language spoken in the eastern part of Flores in Indonesia, especially in Larantuka. It is a derivative of Malay which is thought to originate from Malacca. It is a language with unspecified linguistic affiliation. According to 2007 data, this language is spoken by 20,000 speakers, mainly the people of East Flores. Larantuka Malay is the mother tongue of the Nagi people. Then it also functions as a second language for several nearby communities.

Apart from the Larantuka, speakers also live in Konga which are also on Flores and Wure (Wureh) on Adonara, where the two dialects are different. In literature it is also called Ende Malay. However, this name is not quite correct and it is not known where it came from, because it was never used at all in Ende. Contrary to the geographical proximity of the two Malay varieties mentioned earlier, they are not at all related to Kupang Malay. Historically, this language has high prestige, where it is a language with a higher status in the eastern part of the island, However, its role was reduced due to pressure from the national language, namely Indonesian. Among its users, it is even starting to be considered a variety of Indonesian.

In terms of grammatical typology, Larantuka Malay can be considered as an isolating language, "with little productive morphology of any kind, apart of reduplication."

From Wikipedia · Larantuka Malay · CC BY-SA 4.0