Rusenu language

Rusenu
Spoken in eastern East Timor
Extinct Unknown, likely 20th century
Language family
Language codes
ISO 639-3 None

Rusenu is a recently discovered (2007), essentially extinct Papuan language formerly spoken in Eastern East Timor.

Rusenu was discovered quite accidentally. When the Dutch-Timorese linguist Aone van Engelenhoven, who was studying a language called Makuva, thought since the 1950s to be extinct,[1] was bound to leave for the Netherlands, he was informed about the existence of a language called Rusenu, with only one elderly woman "who had some knowledge of it."[2] He gave his tape recorder to this informant, who subsequently interrogated the women and her son. She remembered a nursery rhyme, which she was unable to interpret (as was her entire tribe). Her son could count to ten in the language. After Van Engelenhoven analysed and transcribed the recording, he concluded that Rusenu, "albeit remotely related to Fataluku, is a separate language."[2] The speakers of Rusenu were also claimed to have been responsible for rock drawings on East Timor,[1] on a mountain called Ilikerekere.[3]

Van Engelenhoven reports this discovery triggered rumours about other languages that have survived to date as cants, and hopes to discover some more unknown East Timorese languages in the near future.[2] According to him, the existence of Rusenu confirms his theory that the Austronesian peoples preceded the Papuan peoples in New Guinea.

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