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Pakpak language

Austronesian language spoken in Sumatra, Indonesia

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Source updated June 13, 2026

Pakpak, or Batak Dairi, is an Austronesian language of Sumatra. It is spoken in Dairi Regency, Pakpak Bharat Regency, Pakkat, Parlilitan, and Tarabintang districts in Humbang Hasundutan Regency, Manduamas district in Central Tapanuli Regency, Subulussalam City, and Aceh Singkil Regency.

01Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n		ŋ
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t	tʃ	k
Plosive/ Affricate	voiced	b	d	dʒ	ɡ
Fricative			s			h
Trill			r
Lateral			l
Semivowel		w		j

A word-final /k/ can also be heard as a glottal stop [ʔ].

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e ⟨é⟩, ɛ ⟨è⟩	ə ⟨e⟩	o
Open		a

Vowels /i, u, e, o/ can have shortened allophones of [ɪ, ʊ, ɛ, ɔ].
To differentiate between the three e sounds, [ə, e, ɛ], Manik used ⟨é⟩ for [e], ⟨è⟩ for [ɛ], and ⟨e⟩ for [ə].

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Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Pakpak language”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

Images, from Wikimedia Commons:

Dairi batak.png by Rotsee2, CC BY-SA 3.0

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