Austronesian language spoken in West Papua, Indonesia
Matbat is a heavily Papuan-influenced Austronesian language spoken in West Papua, Indonesia, on the island of Misool, Raja Ampat islands. Its dialects are "Magey" and "Tomolol". Similar to the neighboring Ma'ya language, Matbat is one of a handful of Austronesian languages with true lexical tone rather than a pitch-accent system or complete lack of phonemic tonal contrasts as with most other Austronesian languages.
Distribution.
Matbat is spoken in the following locations within Raja Ampat Regency:
Phonology.
The phonology of the Matbat language is summarized below:
 can be heard freely as or in word-initial position.
Tones.
Matbat has five lexical tones: high falling 41, high 3, low rising 12, low level 1, and low falling 21, which in open syllables has a peaking allophone, 121. Most Matbat words are monosyllabic; additional syllables in polysyllabic words are often weak and toneless, though a few words do have two tonic syllables. Examples of some of the longer monomorphemic words are 'star', 'sea shore', 'round', 'butterfly'.
Evolution.
Tonogenesis in Matbat remains unclear. Some Matbat reflexes of Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (PMP) proto-forms are listed below.
References.
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Further reading.
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