Ambelau () is an

Austronesian language The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken b ...

; in 1989, it was spoken by about 5,700 Ambelau people, of whom more than 5,000 lived on the

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

n island

Ambelau Ambelau or Ambalau is a volcanic island in the Banda Sea within Maluku Islands of Indonesia. The island forms an administrative district () which is part of the South Buru Regency () of Maluku (province), Maluku province (), Indonesia. It has a ...

() and most others in the village Wae Tawa of the nearby island

Buru Buru (formerly spelled Boeroe, Boro, or Bouru) is the third largest island within the Maluku Islands of Indonesia. It lies between the Banda Sea to the south and Seram Sea to the north, west of Ambon Island, Ambon and Seram Island, Seram island ...

(). The language is traditionally classified in a Central Maluku branch of

Malayo-Polynesian languages The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. The Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken by the Austronesian peoples outside of Taiwan, in the island nations of Southeas ...

; more recent classifications have placed it with the Sula–Buru languages. Although Ambelau island is only 20 km away from the much larger Buru island (population 135,000), the Ambelau language is rather different from all languages and dialects of Buru. The preservation of the language was also unaffected by the fact that Ambelau people compose only half of the Ambelau island population, and the communication with the

Bugis The Bugis people, also known as Buginese, are an Austronesian ethnic groupthe most numerous of the three major linguistic and ethnic groups of South Sulawesi (the others being Makassarese and Torajan), in the south-western province of Sula ...

and Javanese people composing the other half usually occurs in the official language of the country, Indonesian. The Ambelau language has no dialectal variation; so the Ambelau community on Buru island speaks identical language to that used on Ambelau. The language has no writing system. The most detailed study of Ambelau language was conducted in the 1980s by Charles E. Grimes and Barbara Dix Grimes – Australian missionaries and ethnographers, active members of

SIL International SIL Global (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics International) is an evangelical Christian nonprofit organization whose main purpose is to study, develop and document languages, especially those that are lesser-known, to expan ...

(they should not be confused with Joseph E. Grimes and Barbara F. Grimes, Charles' parents, also known Australian ethnographers).

References

{{authority control Central Maluku languages Languages of the Maluku Islands