Leti is an Austronesian language spoken on the island of Leti in Maluku. Although it shares a lot of vocabulary with the neighboring Luang language, and is marginally mutually intelligible, it is not clear that it is more closely related to Luang than to other Southwest Maluku languages.

Fewer than 1% of Leti speakers are literate in Leti, though between a quarter and a half are literate in another language.

Varieties

The main dialectological division in Leti is between eastern varieties, spoken in the domains of Laitutun and Luhuleli, and western varieties, spoken in the domains of Batumiau, Tutukei, Tomra, and Nuwewang. This article focusses on the Tutukei variety. Tutukei itself divides into two sociolects, lirlèta ('lèta language', lèta meaning '(walled) village') and lirkòta ('city language').

Leti also has two literary or ritual varieties, lirmarna ('royal language') and lirasnïara ('sung language'). Both of them prominently feature lexical parallelism.

Per van Engelenhoven 2004, "the major issue in formal Leti discourse is to keep speaking as long as possible. Indeed, the important element in 'royal speech' is not what is said, but rather how it is said and how long it takes to be said". In particular lirmarna features formulaic pairs of clauses which are syntactically identical, each pair of corresponding words in the two clauses forming a lexical pair.

Lirasnïara is the sung form of lirmarna. It employs a repertoire of approximately 150 Luangic-Kisaric words with distinctive sound changes: e.g. /βuna/ 'flower' and /tutu/ 'point' are /βɔe/ and /kukie/ in lirasniara. Often borrowings from Malay

Malay language

Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...

 are inserted as well. Again per van Engelenhoven 2004, "in Southwest Malukan society turn-taking in singing is ritualized and as such a fixed strategy, which makes it a powerful rhetoric device in Leti discourse. [...] [A] song may not be interrupted when performed. Singing is thus a means to prevent interruption in a speech event or an instrument to surpass the other speech participants".

Consonants

	Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...	Dental	Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...	Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....
Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...	m	n
Plosive	p	t	d	k
Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...	β (v)	s
Lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth....			l
Trill Trill consonant In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular....			r

In addition, the phonemes /b/, /c/, /ɡ/, /ŋ/, and /h/ occur only in loans, mostly from Indonesian

Indonesian language

Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....

, Tetum, and the local variety of Malay

Malay language

Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...

.

Vowels

	Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also...	Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel...	Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...
Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the...	i		u
Close-mid Close-mid vowel A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel...	e		o
Open-mid Open-mid vowel An open-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from an open vowel to a mid vowel...	ɛ (è)		ɔ (ò)
Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue...		a

These vowels can also occur long

Vowel length

In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in...

; the phonemic status of long vowels hangs on the interpretation of Leti's pervasive metathetic processes.

The mid vowels /e, o, ɛ, ɔ/ are restricted to the penult of lexical morphemes, which is stressed. The majority of these morphemes provide no evidence for the height contrast — /ɛ, ɔ/ are found before an ultimate /a/ and /e, o/ in other positions — and diachronically there was no contrast. However, the contrast is set up synchronically on account of certain exceptions (/ea/ 'he, she', /msena/ 'refuse', /dena/ 'stay'), and the fact that when suffixed the conditioning vowel can disappear:

/kɛrna/ 'dry' → /ŋkɛrnulu/ 'it dries first'

/kernu/ 'descend' → /ŋkernulu/ 'he descends first'

Phonological processes

Metathesis

Metathesis (linguistics)

Metathesis is the re-arranging of sounds or syllables in a word, or of words in a sentence. Most commonly it refers to the switching of two or more contiguous sounds, known as adjacent metathesis or local metathesis:...

 and apocope

Apocope

In phonology, apocope is the loss of one or more sounds from the end of a word, and especially the loss of an unstressed vowel.-Historical sound change:...

, together binding processes, are pervasive in Leti as a feature of combinations of morphemes. The preferred "flow of speech" in Leti seems to involve chains of CCV units.

The free form of any Leti morpheme always features a final vowel, so those whose bound forms end in consonants feature two allomorphs which are related by CV metathesis. Thus 'skin, fly (n.), fish, bird' have bound forms /ulit, llaran, iina, maanu/ (the latter two with long vowels) but free forms /ulti, llarna, ian, maun/.

When a morpheme whose bound form ends in a vowel is prefixed to another component, that final vowel may apocopate or metathesise into the following component. CV metathesis happens when the metathesising vowel is high and it's followed by at most one consonant and a nonhigh vowel. The metathesised vowel is realised as a glide, [j w] written as ï ü. Thus sivi + ternu 'chicken + egg' becomes sivtïernu 'chicken egg', au + laa 1st sing. pronoun + 'go' becomes alüaa 'I go'. In other contexts apocope happens, unless this would leave an illicit three-consonant cluster. So sivi + ruri 'chicken + bone' becomes sivruri 'chicken bone', kusa + nama 'cat + tongue' becomes kusnama 'cat's tongue'.

A similar metathesis is found with the nominaliser, historically an infix -in-, but now taking the form -nï- among many other allomorphs (detailed more below): thus sora 'sew' derives snïora 'needle'.

Morphology

Human nouns pluralise with the third person plural pronominal clitic -ra, which must follow another suffixed element: püata 'woman', püat=e 'the woman', püat=e=ra 'the women'. Nonhuman nouns pluralise by repetition: kuda 'horse', kuda kuda 'horses'.

Leti has four possessive suffix

Possessive suffix

In linguistics, a possessive affix is a suffix or prefix attached to a noun to indicate its possessor, much in the manner of possessive adjectives. Possessive suffixes are found in some Uralic, Altaic, Semitic, and Indo-European languages...

es, which undergo binding.

	Singular	Plural
1st	-ku	-nV
2nd	-mu	-mi
3rd	-nV

The vowel V in the first person plural and third person suffix copies the last vowel of its base.

Nouns can be zero-derived to verbs: e.g. rita 'roof' → na-rita 'he roofs' or 'it has a roof'.

Nominal compounding

Compounding

Compounding is the mixing of drugs by a compounding pharmacist to fit the unique needs of a patient...

 is highly productive as a derivational process. Some examples are rai + lavna 'king' + 'big' → ralïavna 'emperor', pipi + ïadmu 'goat' + 'shed' → pipïadmu 'goat shed', vutu + müani 'ribbon' + 'man' → vutumüani 'man's ribbon', vika + papa 'buttocks' + 'cucumber' → vikpapa 'cockroach', kapla + nèma reduplicated 'ship' + 'fly' → kapalnèmnèma 'airplane'.

Verbs fall into two classes according to whether their subject prefixes exhibit binding or not: those of Class I do not, those of Class II do. By default verbs are in Class II. Certain verbs are lexically in Class I (like nòa 'advise'), together with all verbs with complex onsets (ssòrna 'cough') and denominal or causativised verbs
(veli 'buy', from the noun veli 'price'). The subject prefixes are as follows.

	Singular	Plural
1st exclusive	u-	ma-
1st inclusive		ta-
2nd	mu-	mi-
3rd	na-	ra-
relative	ka-

Verbs with first person singular inflection necessarily take the pronoun a= 'I' as a proclitic.

Some causatives are marked only by class change: pali means 'float' in class II and 'make float' in class I.

The nominalising

Nominalization

In linguistics, nominalization or nominalisation is the use of a verb, an adjective, or an adverb as the head of a noun phrase, with or without morphological transformation...

 affix productively derives nouns from verbs. It takes several different forms, most of which are infix

Infix

An infix is an affix inserted inside a word stem . It contrasts with adfix, a rare term for an affix attached to the end of a stem, such as a prefix or suffix.-Indonesian:...

es, depending on the phonological shape and the class of its base.

Form	Example	Class	Conditions
nïa-	na-ltïeri 'he speaks' → nïaltïeri 'speaking'	I	general
i- + -ï-	na-nòa 'he advises' → inïòa 'advising'	I	only three verbs, all starting in n
ï-	n-odi 'he carries' → ïodi 'load, carrying-pole'	II	vowel-initial
nï-	n-odi 'he carries' → nïodi 'act of carrying'	II	vowel-initial, nominalises the act when ï- yields an instrument sense
-nï-	m-pali 'it floats' → pnïali 'floating'	II	non-nasal non-alveolar initial consonant
-n-	m-pupnu 'he shuts' → pnupnu 'shutting'	II	form of -nï- before high vowels
-ï-	n-mai 'he comes' → mïai 'arrival'	II	nasal or alveolar initial consonant

Reduplication

Reduplication

Reduplication in linguistics is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word is repeated exactly or with a slight change....

, which usually copies a root-initial CV or CVCV sequence with binding, has a variety of functions, among them adjectivisation of nouns (üau 'idiot' → üa-üau 'idiotic') and verbs (mèra 'redden' → mèr-mèra), derivation of nouns, especially instruments (sòra 'sew' → sòr-sòra 'needle'), marking atelicity, and relativising

Relativizer

In linguistics, a relativizer is a grammatical element used to indicate a relative clause. Not all languages use relativizers; most Indo-European languages use relative pronouns instead, and some languages, such as Japanese, rely solely on word order to indicate relative clauses...

 on an object (n-vèèta 'he pulls' → (n-)vèvèèta 'which he pulls').

Lexical parallelism

Many of Leti's lexical items are organised into lexical pairs,
which are always deployed as fixed combinations in a fixed order.
A few pairs involve adjectives or numerals, but the
vast majority consist of nouns (e.g. püata // müani 'woman // man',
üèra // vatu 'water // stone') or verbs
(e.g. kili // toli 'look // see', keri // kòi 'scratch / scrape').

Some words are confined to lexical pairs,
such as tirka in tirka // llena 'lightning',
or both dupla and mavla in dupla // mavla 'witchcraft';
these pairs are restricted to lirmarna.
In lirmarna the function of lexical pairs is to
highlight particular elements of a sentence, or simply to mark formality.
When used in ordinary speech, the meanings of
lexical pairs can relate in various ways to those of their components:

leli // masa 'ivory // gold', meaning 'treasure'

lòi // spou 'proa

Proa

A proa, also seen as prau, perahu, and prahu, is a type of multihull sailing vessel.While the word perahu and proa are generic terms meaning boat their native language, proa in Western languages has come to describe a vessel consisting of two unequal length parallel hulls...

 // sailing boat', meaning 'traditional fleet'

nusa // rai 'island // mainland', meaning 'archipelago'

ili // vatu 'hill // stone', meaning 'fort'

püata // müani 'woman // man', meaning either 'married couple' or 'gender'

Or they can simply have the sense of a conjunction, e.g.
asu // vavi 'dog // pig' = 'the dog and the pig';
these are the only sort of conjoined phrases that do not require
the conjunction na.

History

The phones of Luangic-Kisaric continue those of
Proto-Malayo-Polynesian

Malayo-Polynesian languages

The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. These are widely dispersed throughout the island nations of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean, with a smaller number in continental Asia...

 according to the following sound changes.
In Western Leti, LK */ʔ/ has vanished and
LK */a/ from MP *e is manifested as /o/.
In Eastern Leti, LK */s/ becomes /h/
and LK */u/ becomes /ɔ/ in the penult before a low vowel.

Proto-Malayo-Polynesian	Luangic-Kisaric
*m	*m
*n, *ɲ, *ŋ	*n
*t, *Z	*t
*k	*ʔ
*g	*k
*b	*β
*z, *d, *D, *R, *r, *j	*r
*l	*l, *n
*s	*s
*w	*w
*h, *q, *p, *y	0
*i, *uy, *ey, *ay	*i
*u	*u
*e	*e, *a
*a, *aw	*a

Roger Mills suggests that Luangic-Kisaric retained distinct reflexes of PMP *ŋ, on the basis of other languages in the family, and *Z. Moreover, although the status of *Z as a PMP phoneme is unclear — Robert Blust

Robert Blust

Robert A. Blust is a prominent linguist in several areas, including historical linguistics, lexicography and ethnology. Blust specializes in the Austronesian languages and has made major contributions to the field of Austronesian linguistics....

 no longer admits it, realigning it with *z — the Luangic languages have no clear examples of inherited *z, despite numerous examples of *Z > /t/.

Mills explains the metathesis found in consonant-final basis
as arising from an original echo vowel

Echo vowel

In speech, an echo vowel is a vowel that repeats the final vowel in a word. For example, in Chumash, when a word ends with a glottal stop and comes at the end of an intonation unit, the final vowel is repeated after the glottal stop, but is whispered and faint, as in for "arrow" . In Rukai , echo...

added to consonant-final forms,
e.g. *kúlit 'skin' > kúliti, after which the original
post-tonic vowel was deleted, e.g. yielding kúlti > Leti ulti.

Jonker (1932) was the first full-scale investigation of Leti, based on a native informant and the few 19th-century works on the language then available.

Examples

The following paragraph is the opening of the Sailfish story as told by Upa S. Manina of Talvunu // Resïara house in the Ilwiaru quarters in Tutukei and reproduced in van Engelenhoven (2004). The Sailfish story is of great importance to Leti society: it provides an origin story for the Leti 'boat owner clans' of Luang origin, describing the destruction of the mythical former Luang continent and the migrations that brought its inhabitants to Leti.

Leti

1. Ululude müani ida mpatròme püata idalo Lïòno.
2. Apo rasaamme.
3. Rasaappo raorïaambo ira aanne ria vòruo.
4. Kòkkòi müani vòrupo nïaulu nvava Retïelüai, üari nvava Sairmòraso.
5. Apo kòkkòi rmapo rapninmüaato.
6. Ne rakkusalkaitmaato.
7. Ne inne nmatio.

English

1. In olden times a man begot a woman on Luang.
2. So they married.
3. They married and begot two children.
4. It was two boys and the firstborn was named Retieluai, the youngest was named Sairmoras.
5. So the children did not know anything yet.
6. They were still very little.
7. And their mother died.