What Is Dhao Language?

Dhao language is not critically endangered because it is still spoken at home by children with some code-mixing, though. However, it can be considered as potentially endangered by reason that (1) the number of active speakers decreases from time to time. Grimes (1997) identified about 7000 native speakers but knowing that only more or less 3000 people are living on the island of Ndao today and a few are in Rote and Timor who are considered as active speakers, then Balukh (2011) claimed that only about 39% of people are now actively speaking Dhao. This is because Dhao has limited room in communication, whether at home, in educational context, media, or in religious context, besides its isolated area. (2) There are still less documentation available for educational institutions to promote Dhao language in official manner.

However, they do not have purposive educational resources to learn writing and reading in their native language. Also, less resource is available for community use. Some other genres, like games, folk songs, chants, ceremonies get less attention because most of the time people use Rotenese cultural products. Some Christian Bible’s books have been translated into Dhao by Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) team but still in limited use. Although the SIL books and the previous documentation of folktales and procedural texts have introduced the orthography of the language, the written form is still considered new for the people of Dhao. As less printed texts in a wide range of genres are available, it still needs time for people to use Dhao language in new