| Bunak | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in | Indonesia, East Timor |
| Region | central Timor |
| Native speakers | unknown (100,000 cited 1977) |
| Language family |
Trans–New Guinea (TNG)
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | bfn |
The Bunak language (also known as Bunaq, Buna', Bunake) is the language of the Bunak people of the mountainous region of central Timor, split between the political boundary between West Timor, Indonesia, particularly in Lamaknen District and East Timor. It is one of the few on Timor which is not an Austronesian language, but rather a Papuan language like groups on New Guinea. It is usually put in the proposed language group Trans–New Guinea. The language is surrounded by Malayo-Polynesian languages, like the Atoni and the Tetum.
According to Languages of the World (Voegelin and Voegelin 1977), there were about 100,000 speakers of the language, split evenly between the two nations.