Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute
Dombano, also known as Sebyar or Arandai, is spoken by perhaps 1,000 people (1987) living in at least three villages, Tomu, Arandai and Kecap, on the lower Sebyar River in the southern portion of the Bird's Head peninsula in the Teluk Bintuni regency of Indonesia's West Papua Province. The term Arandai has been used in the literature to refer to both Dombano and its nearest relative Kemberano, sometimes also including Kokoda (Voorhoeve 1975: 33, 1985: 3, Berry and Berry 1987: 93, 98.)
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Galis (1955: PAGE) 26 comparative terms for Jaban-Arandai
Anceaux (n.d.) …
Greenberg (n.d.) …
Voorhoeve (1975: 102) 40 comparative terms for Arandai
Smits and Voorhoeve (1998) … Arandai
Voorhoeve (1985: 17-19) grammar sketch and (pp. 23-38) 211 comparative terms for Sebyar of Tomu village
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Voorhoeve (1985: 17) gives 9 consonants and 5 vowels for Sebyar as follows:
| m | n | ||
| p | t | k | |
| b | d | g | |
| ɾ |
| i | u | |
| e | o | |
| a |
Voorhoeve treats prenasalized stops [mb nd ŋg], which occur only medially, as clusters [mb nd ng].
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Voorhoeve (1985: 17-18) gives Sebyar pronouns in three case forms as follows:
| subject | alienable poss. | inalienable | |
| 1 sg. | ˈnendi | ˈnejgo | n(a)- |
| 2 sg. | ˈandi | ˈajgo | a- |
| 3 sg. | uˈma | maniˈago | ? |
| 1 pl. | ˈnindi | ? | ? |
| 2 pl. | ˈjendi | ˈjajgo | ja- |
| 3 pl. | ? | manduˈajgo | ? |
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