The North Halmahera (NH) languages are a family of languages spoken in the northern and eastern parts of the island of

Halmahera Halmahera, formerly known as Jilolo, Gilolo, or Jailolo, is the largest island in the Maluku Islands. It is part of the North Maluku Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia, and Sofifi, the capital of the province, is located on the west coa ...

and some neighboring islands in

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, ...

. The southwestern part of the island is occupied by the unrelated South Halmahera languages, which are a subgroup of Austronesian. They may be most closely related to the languages of the

Bird's Head The Bird's Head Peninsula ( Indonesian: , , meaning Bird's Head in Indonesian and Dutch) or Doberai Peninsula (''Semenanjung Doberai'') is a large peninsula that makes up the northwest portion of the island of New Guinea, comprising the Indones ...

region of West Papua, but this is not well-established. The best known North Halmaheran language is

Ternate Ternate (), also known as the City of Ternate (; ), is the List of regencies and cities of Indonesia, city with the largest population in the province of North Maluku and an island in the Maluku Islands, Indonesia. It was the ''de facto'' provi ...

(50,000 native speakers), which is a regional

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...

and which, along with Tidore, were the languages of the rival medieval

and Tidore sultanates, famous for their role in the

spice trade The spice trade involved historical civilizations in Asia, Northeast Africa and Europe. Spices, such as cinnamon, cassia, cardamom, ginger, pepper, nutmeg, star anise, clove, and turmeric, were known and used in antiquity and traded in t ...

. Most of these languages are very closely related to each other, and their family status is well-demonstrated. West Makian stands out as an isolate. Their external links remain unclear. While genealogically distinct from most

languages of Indonesia Indonesia is home to over 700 living languages spoken across its extensive archipelago. This significant linguistic variety constitutes approximately 10% of the world’s total languages, positioning Indonesia as the second most linguisticall ...

, they all show evidence of extensive contact with the dominant Austronesian language family. Some of the North Halmahera languages are characterized by their elaborate morphological structures. Others exhibit deep external influence, having shifted to a more Austronesian-type grammar as a consequence of prolonged contact.

Genetic and areal relations

Spoken in the

Maluku Islands The Maluku Islands ( ; , ) or the Moluccas ( ; ) are an archipelago in the eastern part of Indonesia. Tectonics, Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located in West ...

, the North Halmahera languages are some of the westernmost

Papuan languages The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands in Indonesia, Solomon Islands, and East Timor. It is a strictly geographical grouping, and does not imply ...

(the only other such outlier family in eastern Indonesia being Timor–Alor–Pantar). Located within

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

, the two families are arguably the only non-Melanesian linguistic groups that can be linked to the Papuan families of

Oceania Oceania ( , ) is a region, geographical region including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Outside of the English-speaking world, Oceania is generally considered a continent, while Mainland Australia is regarded as its co ...

. The languages are thought to have been brought to the region as a result of migration from

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...

, likely predating the arrival of Austronesian languages. These languages are classified by some to be part of a larger West Papuan family, along with the languages of the

region of

Western New Guinea Western New Guinea, also known as Papua, Indonesian New Guinea, and Indonesian Papua, is the western half of the island of New Guinea, formerly Dutch and granted to Indonesia in 1962. Given the island is alternatively named Papua, the region ...

, while others consider NH to form a distinct language family, with no demonstrable relationship outside the region. The languages of North Halmahera appear to have the closest affinity with the languages of the Bird's Head, which suggests a migration from the western Bird's Head to northern Halmahera. However, Ger Reesink notes that the evidence for genetic relatedness between the different "West Papuan" groupings is too skimpy to form a firm conclusion, suggesting that they be considered an areal network of unrelated linguistic families. Moreover, many speakers of NH languages, such as the , Tidore, and peoples, are physically distinct from New Guineans, while Papuan traits are more prevalent among the

Austronesian-speaking peoples The Austronesian people, sometimes referred to as Austronesian-speaking peoples, are a large group of peoples who have settled in Taiwan, maritime Southeast Asia, parts of mainland Southeast Asia, Micronesia, coastal New Guinea, Island Melanesi ...

of South Halmahera.

Robert Blust Robert A. Blust (; zh, c=白樂思, p=Bái Lèsī; May 9, 1940 – January 5, 2022) was an American linguist who worked in several areas, including historical linguistics, lexicography and ethnology. He was Professor of Linguistics at the Uni ...

(2013) considers this paradox to be a result of historical

language replacement Language shift, also known as language transfer, language replacement or language assimilation, is the process whereby a speech community shifts to a different language, usually over an extended period of time. Often, languages that are perceived ...

. The ethnic groups of the north Halmahera area share civilizational links with the Islamic world and the populations of western Indonesia, betraying a mismatch between cultural and linguistic affiliation. At the turn of the 19th century, the NH languages had already been recognized as a highly divergent (but perhaps Austronesian) group. Their non-Austronesian character was finally demonstrated by

Hendrik van der Veen Hendrik van der Veen (1888–1977)Hendrik van der Veen
at biografischportaal.nl Proto-North Halmahera consonants are (after Voorhoeve 1994: 68, cited in Holton and Klamer 2018: 584): : Proto-North Halmahera is notable for having the

voiced retroflex stop The voiced retroflex plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is d`. Like all the retrofle ...

*ɖ, as

retroflex consonant A retroflex () or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consona ...

s are often not found in

. The following proto-North Halmahera reconstructions are listed in Holton and Klamer (2018: 620–621). Most of the forms in Holton and Klamer are derived from Wada (1980). ;proto-North Halmahera reconstructions (Holton & Klamer 2018) :

Vocabulary comparison

The following basic vocabulary words are from the Trans-New Guinea database. The words cited constitute translation equivalents, whether they are cognate (e.g. ''utu'', ''hutu'' for “hair”) or not (e.g. ''dofolo'', ''apota'' for “head”). :

References

External links

North Halmahera word lists
(Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database) {{Papuan languages West Papuan languages Languages of the Maluku Islands Language families Halmahera