Did you know there are over 1300 different ethnic groups living indigenously in Indonesia? These various people groups speak a whopping 700+ languages across the Indonesian islands, making the country one of the most linguistically diverse on the planet. Thus, while the majority of Indonesians do speak Indonesian, the national language, for most of them, it’s not their first language. That honor goes to one of the hundreds of regional indigenous languages in the country.
Take Manggarai, for example. This is one of the biggest indigenous languages of Indonesia, spoken by more than 730,000 people as of 2009. Manggarai speakers use one of several dialects, and most also learn Indonesian to communicate with non-Manggarai speakers. With most Manggarai speakers bilingual in Indonesian, Manggarai’s future survival is coming under increasing threat, as some speakers could opt to forgo Manggarai entirely in favor of Indonesian. But Manggarai is a precious cultural treasure that we at TranslationServices.com believe should be preserved for generations to come. That’s why we’ve sought out top Manggarai translators and put together our very own team.
Let us provide a quote for our Manggarai translation services for free—just message us to ask for one.
Diving into the details of Manggarai
Manggarai’s 730,000-odd speakers come from East Nusa Tenggara, the southernmost province in Indonesia. Specifically, they live on the western portion of Flores Island, in Manggarai Regency, East Manggarai Regency, and West Manggarai Regency. As it’s written in the Latin alphabet, it’s easy for English speakers to read, as well as speakers of most other Indonesian languages, which are broadly written in the Latin script. Manggarai’s language family—the Malayo–Polynesian branch of the Austronesian family—is another similarity it shares with the majority of languages in Indonesia.
Manggarai features a default subject-verb-object word order, the same as English, although subject pronouns can be omitted when obvious from context. In questions, word order shifts to a verb-initial construction. Unlike English but like French, Manggarai speakers position adjectives after the noun they modify. Manggarai features limited inflection but not none—in particular, nouns can be marked with personal possessive inflection, and verbs and even adjectives can be marked for person. Verbs do not undergo inflection for tense, which can often be inferred through context without any explicit grammatical markers.
Manggarai’s limited inflection may make it sound easy, but the lack of grammatical markers can conversely lead to confusion. But don’t worry—our Manggarai translators can handle it with ease.
Choose between translation into Manggarai and translation from Manggarai.
We’ve built our team with quality and flexibility in mind. With a diverse range of translators specializing in different areas of Manggarai translation, we ensure we can cover a wide array of client needs, including both translation into Manggarai and translation from Manggarai. Our team can handle documents from way back, translating historical Manggarai texts into clear English, and we can expertly transform Manggarai stories into natural English. Our translators are also capable of translation research surveys into Manggarai, as well as educational material and everything from books and poems to websites and games. With the goal of preserving their precious Manggarai language, our translators always work hard to deliver quality and accuracy.
Let us know the details of your Manggarai translation project so we can get started on it today.