The Alor-Pantar languages: Linguistic context, history and typology

This chapter presents an introduction to the Alor-Pantar languages, and to the chapters of the volume. It discusses the current linguistic ecology of Alor and Pantar, the history of research on the languages, presents an overview of the history of research in the area and describes the state of the art of the (pre-)history of speaker groups on the islands. A typological overview of the family is presented, followed by a discussion of specific sets of lexical items. Throughout the chapter I provide pointers to individual chapters of the volume that contain more detailed information or references.