Abstract
Rongga is Austronesian language spoken by a minority group of 5.000 speakers in the Regency of East Manggarai at the border with Ngadha, Flores, East Nusa Tenggara Province. In the sociolinguistic context of diglossia in Indonesia, Rongga is highly disadvantaged. This Paper report the finding on loan words in Rongga showing a one-way influence and presure from Indonesian to Rongga. Two prominent linguistic features of Ronnga relevant for the feature of open syllable with certain unique phonemes characterising Rongga phonology. The discussion on the theoretical and practical implications of this preliminary study in terms of processes of language contact, multilingualism and endangerment is also given.
