The North Halmahera languages are a family of about 11 languages spoken in the northern and eastern parts of Halmahera island and neighboring islands in Indonesia's Maluku Islands. They are classified either as part of the West Papuan family or as an independent family, representing some of the westernmost Papuan languages, and they remain genealogically distinct from the Austronesian languages that have heavily influenced them through contact. The most prominent member is Ternate, with roughly 50,000 native speakers, which also functions as a regional lingua franca.
Facts
Partially Attested
Speaker CountA family-wide total is not published in one source. Ternate, the best known among roughly a dozen North Halmahera languages and a historical regional lingua franca, alone has this many native speakers per the cited source. Other member languages (Tidore, Galela, Tobelo, Sahu, West Makian and others) are not counted here. RegionMaluku Islands, Indonesia 1 Proto-Language StatusReconstructed. Voorhoeve (1994) and Wada (1980) reconstructed Proto-North Halmahera consonants and basic vocabulary, as summarized in Holton and Klamer (2018). 1 In the Other Atlases
- Also in Geography Atlas: Asia, found in there.
Sources
1. Wikipedia: North Halmahera Languages
Wikimedia FoundationNorth Halmahera languages, Wikipedia, infobox region field
Maluku Islands, Indonesia
North Halmahera languages, Wikipedia, opening section
The best known North Halmaheran language is Ternate (50,000 native speakers)
North Halmahera languages, Wikipedia, Lexical reconstruction section
Proto-North Halmahera consonants are (after Voorhoeve 1994: 68, cited in Holton and Klamer 2018: 584):
View the Source Wikidata: North Halmahera
Wikidata Q3217358, class allow-list match (w-wdresolver-0926)View the Source Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.