Ngadha (, also spelled Ngada, Ngada or Ngada ) is an Austronesian language, one of six languages spoken in the central stretch of the Indonesian island of Flores. From west to east these languages are Ngadha, Nage, Keo, Ende, Lio, and Palu'e. These languages form the proposed Central Flores group of the Sumba–Flores languages, according to Blust (2009). Djawanai (1983) precises that Ngadha somewhat deviates from Austronesian norms, in that words do not have clear cognates and the grammatical processes are different; for example, the Austronesian family of languages makes an abundant use of prefixes or suffixes (which form new words by adding extensions either before or after root-words, such as [per-]form or child[-hood]), whereas the Ngadha language uses no prefixes or suffixes. Ngadha is one of the few languages with a retroflex implosive.

Phonology

The sound system of Ngadha is as follows.

Vowels

The short vowel is written ⟨e⟩ followed by a double consonant, since phonetically a consonant becomes geminate after. It is never stressed and does not form sequences with other vowels except where glottal stop has dropped (e.g. limaessa 'six', from lima 'five' and 'essa 'one'). Within vowel sequences, epenthetic may appear after an unrounded vowel (e.g. in, ) and after a rounded vowel (e.g. in , ). Double vowels are sequences. Vowels tend to be voiceless between voiceless consonants and pre-pausa after voiceless consonants. Stress is on the penultimate syllable, unless that contains the vowel, in which case stress is on the final syllable.

Consonants

The implosives have been spelled ⟨b d⟩, ⟨b d⟩ and ⟨bh dh⟩. The velar fricatives are spelled ⟨h, gh⟩. The trill is short, and may have only one or two contacts. Glottal stop contrasts with zero in initial position, as in inu 'drink', or 'inu 'tiny'. In rapid speech it tends to drop intervocalically. Phonetically words are analyzed as having an initial schwa. In initial position the consonant is always voiced (otherwise the schwa remains). Examples are emma 'father', emmu 'mosquito', enna 'sand', Ennga (name), ebba 'swadling sling', ebbu 'grandparents', Ebbo (name), erro 'sun' – also in medial position with voiceless consonants, as in limaessa 'six'.