Alor Malay is aMalay-based creole language spoken in theAlor Archipelago ofIndonesia. Speakers perceive Alor Malay to be a different register of standard Indonesian, but both of these are prestige varieties of the archipelago. Many people are able to understand standard Indonesian, but cannot speak it fluently and choose to use Alor Malay on a daily basis.^[1]

Alor Malay is based onKupang Malay; however, Alor Malay differs significantly from Kupang Malay, especially in its pronouns.^[2] Before Alor Malay becamelingua franca,Alorese language served as a lingua franca in the Alor-Pantar archipelago before Malay began to be widely used.^[3]

Alor Malay is an isolating language. Verbs are not morphologically marked for tense or aspect. The only productive nominal morphology is full reduplication. Nominal reduplication indicates plurality, collectivity, and diversity. Full reduplication of the verb can express intensity, iterativity, and casualness, among other concepts.^[4]

Nominal Reduplication

Verbal Reduplication

The typical word order in Alor Malay is Agent Verb Patient. Alor Malay uses serial verb constructions such asbawa datang ‘bring (lit. bring come)’ andkasi jatu ‘drop (lit. give fall)’. There are also temporal and aspectual adverbs. The verbal negation marker precedes the verb, as india tida omong ‘he does not speak’. Possessed items are preceded by their possessors. Demonstratives typically precede their nouns.^[4]

Possession

Negation

Serial Verb Construction

• Languages of Indonesia
• Malay-based pidgins and creoles

• CS1 Indonesian-language sources (id)
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Language articles without speaker estimate
• Languages without ISO 639-3 code but with Glottolog code