Halmahera languages

Halmahera
North Halmahera
Geographic distribution:	Maluku
Linguistic classification:	West Papuan Halmahera
Glottolog:	nort2923[1]

The (North) Halmahera languages are the Papuan languages of Halmahera and neighboring islands in Indonesia. The best known 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 kingdoms of 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. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "North Halmahera". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
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.