North Halmahera languages

North Halmahera
Halmahera, North Halmaheran
Geographic
distribution		 Maluku Islands
Linguistic classification West Papuan
  • North Halmahera
Glottolog nort2923[1]

The North Halmahera languages are the Papuan languages of Halmahera and neighboring islands in Indonesia. The best known North Halmaheran language is Ternate (50 000 native speakers), which is a regional lingua franca and which, along with Tidore, were the languages of the rival medieval Ternate and Tidore sultanates, famous for their role in the spice trade.

Classification

The classification used here is that of Voorhoeve 1988.[2]

 

 Core Halmaheran 

 

Ternate–Tidore

 
 

Sahu: Sahu, Waioli, Gamkonora

 
 

Galela–Tobelo (Northeast Halmaheran): Tobelo, Galela–Loloda, Modole, Pagu, Tabaru

 
 
 

West Makian

 
 

West Makian is divergent, perhaps due to Austronesian influence. It was once classified as an Austronesian language.

There is a degree of mutual intelligibility between the Galela–Tobelo languages, and Voorhoeve 1988 considered them dialects of a language he called Northeast Halmaheran, though most speakers consider them to be distinct languages. Ethnologue adds Kao, which it classifies as Sahu but notes may be a marginal dialect of Pagu.

References

  1. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "North Halmahera". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  2. ↑ Voorhoeve, C.L. 1988. The languages of the northern Halmaheran stock. Papers in New Guinea Linguistics, no. 26., 181-209. (Pacific Linguistics A-76). Canberra: Australian National University.
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