Merap | |
Region: | Borneo |
States: | Indonesia |
Ethnicity: | Merap |
Speakers: | 200 |
Date: | 1981 |
Ref: | e18 |
Familycolor: | Austronesian |
Fam2: | Malayo-Polynesian |
Fam4: | Kayanic |
Fam5: | Murik–Merap |
Iso3: | puc |
Glotto2: | mera1243 |
Glottorefname2: | Merap |
Merap (Mbraa) is an Austronesian language of Borneo in Indonesia. Soriente (2015) classifies Mbraa (also known as Merap) as a Kayan–Murik (Modang-Bahau) language.
Merap phonology has departed significantly from Proto-Malayo Polynesian. Merap stress is word-final, and word shape is sesquisyllabic (a minor penultimate syllable followed by a stressed full ultima). The number of vowel contrasts has increased significantly as well. Where Proto-Malayo-Polynesian had four vowels (*i, *u, *a, and schwa) Merap has well over twenty contrasts, including diphthongs, triphthongs, and nasality distinctions. [1]