Sikka language

The Sikka language or Sikkanese, also known as Sika,^[2] is spoken by around 180,000 people of the Sika ethnic group on Flores island in East Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia. It is a member of the Central Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family.

Sikka
Native to	Indonesia
Region	Flores
Ethnicity	Sikka
Native speakers	(180,000 cited 1995)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Central–Eastern MP Flores–Lembata Sikka
Language codes
ISO 639-3	ski
Glottolog	sika1262

Sikka is notable for being one of the few languages which contain a non-allophonic labiodental flap. Like many other languages in eastern Indonesia, it shows evidence of having a Papuan (non-Austronesian) substratum, but in the case of Sika, this includes extreme morphological simplification and about 20% lexical replacement in basic vocabulary. It has been hypothesized that the Austronesian languages in that area could be descendants of a creole language, resulting from the intrusion of Austronesian languages into eastern Indonesia.^[3]

Sika has at least three recognized dialects:

• Sikka Natar, which is generally perceived in the region to be the most refined and most prestigious of the Sika speech varieties.
• Sara Krowe, spoken in the central hills of Sika-speaking people.
• Ata Tana 'Ai or Sara Tana 'Ai, used by both outsiders and insiders to refer to the people and language of the region; it is also used as a ritual language.^[2]

Phonology

Consonants

Sika has the following consonant phonemes:^[2]

		Bilabial	Dental	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	Voiceless	p	t		k	ʔ
	Voiced	b	d		g
Fricative	Voiceless		s			h
	Voiced	β
Affricate				d͡ʒ
Nasal		m	n		ŋ
Lateral			l
Trill			r

Vowels

Sika has the following vowel phonemes:^[2]

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	e	ə	o
Low		a