Hikayat Lonthoir, a rare saga manuscript collection originating from the Banda Archipelago, Maluku, Indonesia, retains significant Indigenous oral history amidst the Western colonial narrative. This study seeks to leverage computational methods to analyze the historic manuscript that constitutes a combination of OCR-supervised transcription, corpus linguistic profiling, semantic clustering (Word2Vec + K-Means), and named entity network analysis. A validation of the dataset is performed on 2793 cleaned word tokens towards Indonesian and Malay dictionaries, showing that 50.3% overlapped with both dictionaries, with strong cross-dictionary agreement (κ = 0.76). The lexical analysis indicates that monarchy/governance, kinship, maritime vocabulary, and extensive morphological productivity (me-, di-, ter-, pe-/per-, -nya, -an), while semantic and network analyses identify two narrative cores, developed into Aarne–Thompson–Uther (ATU) and Stith Thompson’s Motif Index of Folk Literature classification systems. These findings demonstrate how computational methods can extract structural, thematic, and relational patterns from historical manuscripts and contribute evidence-based insights to digital philology and historical linguistics.

This paper provides comprehensive and systematized lists of names of ‘moko’ drums from Alor Island, in Southeast Indonesia. ‘Moko’ drums are unique cultural objects from the Alor-Pantar Archipelago and, besides their ancient function of ritual instruments used mainly for religious purposes and in public events by the indigenous peoples of the islands, they represented and still are considered a very valuable local ‘currency’ for trade and for specific social interactions rooted in aboriginal culture, like bride price negotiations. Despite the fact that they are extremely popular and widespread among Papuan peoples in Alor and Pantar, the origins of these drums are still relatively obscure. The native speakers, indeed, cannot explain the name ‘moko’ in itself, at the etymological and semantic level, and, despite the fact that they agree upon non-local origins of the instruments, they do not know where the instruments themselves were produced and from where they came to the islands. Our paper provides the readers with comprehensive lists that systematically collect the names of the drums, with the related glosses and basic additional information, from three representative Papuan languages of Alor Island, namely Abui, Sawila, and Kula. Configured as potentially indispensable tools to develop further research, these lists enhance our knowledge and understanding of the culture of the ‘moko’ drums in the Alor-Pantar Archipelago, at the linguistic (etymology of the names), anthropological (social value of the drums), and archeological (typology and provenance of the instruments) levels. This cataloguing operation is also part of the effort of documentation of the languages and cultures, still scarcely documented and definitely endangered, of the native peoples of the Alor-Pantar Archipelago.

This paper aims at documenting and reconstructing the linguistic processes generating and substantiating the use of number systems, numbers in general, elementary arithmetic, and the related concepts and notions among the Kula people from Alor Island, Southeastern Indonesia. The Kula is a Papuan population from the Alor–Pantar Archipelago (Timor area). The name of their language, Kula (or Kola), corresponds to the ethnonym. The language is, currently, endangered and not completely documented. At the level of linguistic features, numeral systems and the terms for numerals from Eastern Alor exhibit, to some extent, unique characteristics, if compared to other languages spoken in other sectors of the island. Therefore, the Kula numbering system is not only significant at the lexicological and lexicographic level, but also represents the essential role of cognitive strategies (e.g., the choice of the base for the numbering systems and the visual representation of counting with the aid of actual ‘objects’, like hands and fingers) in the coinage of numerical terms among the local speakers. Indeed, the development of numeral systems reflects the evolution of human language and the ability of humans to construct abstract numerical concepts. The way numerals are encoded and expressed in a language can impact the patterns according to which numerical notions are conceptualized and understood. Different numeral systems can indicate variations in cognitive processes involving notions of quantities and measurements. Therefore, the structure and characteristics of a numeral system may affect how numeral concepts are mentally represented and developed. This paper focuses on the number system of the Kula people and the lexical units used by the local speakers to indicate (and to explain) the numbers, with the related concepts, notions, and symbolism. The investigation delves into the degrees of abstraction of the Kula numeral system and tries to ascertain its origins and reconstruct it. Moreover, the article applies to the analysis a comparative approach, which takes into account several Papuan and Austronesian languages from Alor Island and Eastern Timor, with the dual aim of investigating, at a preliminary level, a possible common evolution and/or divergent naming processes in local numbering systems and their historical–linguistic and etymological origins.

This study examines the attitudes of East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) civil servants toward the English Day Policy introduced in Governor Regulation No. 56 of 2018. The policy aligns with NTT’s focus on tourism development, emphasizing English proficiency as key to enhancing global competitiveness. Addressing a research gap, the study explores the sociolinguistic effects of promoting English in a multilingual, culturally rich region. Data was collected from 604 civil servants via an online questionnaire distributed through WhatsApp. The survey included seven Likert-scale statements and one open-ended question in Bahasa Indonesia. Using a mixed-method approach, the analysis combined quantitative data with qualitative sociolinguistic insights. Findings reveal generally positive attitudes toward the policy, with most respondents agreeing that English is crucial for tourism and acknowledging the policy’s benefits. They also dismissed concerns that the initiative could harm local languages or Bahasa Indonesia. However, participants noted limitations in implementing the language policy, highlighting that favorable attitude alone cannot ensure its success.