Tobelo ( id, bahasa Tobelo) is a
North Halmahera language spoken on the eastern Indonesian 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 province of Indonesia, and Sofifi, the capital of the province, is located on the west coast of the island.
Hal ...
and on parts of several neighboring islands. The Tobelo-speaking heartland is in the six administrative districts ( id, kecamatan) of Tobelo, located on the western shore of
Kao Bay
Kao may refer to:
Mythology
* Kao (bull), a supernatural divine bull in Meitei mythology, captured by Khuman Khamba
Places
* Käo, Saare County, Estonia, a village
* Käo, Tartu County, Estonia, a village
* Kao, Indonesia, a town
* Kao, Leso ...
and forming the central part of
Halmahera Utara Regency. Other Tobelo-speaking areas are the five districts of Wasile (the northwestern half of
Halmahera Timur Regency) on the southern and eastern shores of Kao Bay, and the northern half of
Morotai Island
Morotai Island ( id, Pulau Morotai) is an island in the Halmahera group of eastern Indonesia's Maluku Islands (Moluccas). It is one of Indonesia's northernmost islands.
Morotai is a rugged, forested island lying to the north of Halmahera. It ha ...
. The district capital, also known as
Tobelo
Tobelo is a town and a district on the eastern Indonesian island of Halmahera. It is the capital of the regency (''kabupaten'') of North Halmahera, part of the province of North Maluku. The town was formalised as the capital of North Halmahera in ...
, serves as a regional commercial and administrative center and is the largest settlement on Halmahera.
Dialects
Six principal dialects are generally recognized (Voorhoeve 1988):
*Heleworuru
*Boeng
*Dodinga
*Lake Paca
*Kukumutuk
*Popon
The last three dialects are also known as "Tugutil". The
Tugutil or
"Forest Tobelo" varieties may include additional dialectal variants, but this has not been satisfactorily documented (Voorhoeve 1988). Intelligibility is not great (Ethnologue).
In addition, based on cognition percentages in a basic vocabulary list, Voorhoeve 1988 identifies five other North Halmaheran language varieties as dialects of the putative Northeast Halmaheran language. Together with Tobelo, these varieties are
Galela,
Loloda,
Modole,
Pagu
The Projektions-AG Union (generally shortened to PAGU) was a German film production company which operated between 1911 and 1924 during the silent era. From 1917 onwards, the company functioned as an independent unit of Universum Film AG, and was e ...
and
Tabaru. Most speakers consider these to be distinct languages from Tobelo, although they do acknowledge a certain degree of mutual intelligibility.
Phonology
Consonants
Consonant sounds in parentheses only occur in loan words or in other Tobelo dialects.
Vowels
Mid front vowels can range from /e/ to /ɛ/.
Directionals
Most all of the 50 languages of Maluku have some sort of
directional system. At the least the up/down distinction seems to be an
areal feature
In geolinguistics, areal features are elements shared by languages or dialects in a geographic area, particularly when such features are not descended from a proto-language, or, common ancestor language. That is, an areal feature is contrasted to ...
. But this brings up the chicken and the egg phenomenon.
Is this directional system of AN or NAN origin? Or is it a mixture?
Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the Tobelo are the most widespread ethnic group in Maluku, with sizable emigrant population throughout the province. We can a least be sure that the Malay directionals are the "egg",
because Malay as spoken in Western Indonesia does not use these directionals whereas Moluccan Malay uses direct calques of the Tobelo terms:
:''bawah'', ''atas'', ''darat'', ''laut''.
Tobelo directionals are described in Taylor (1984).
Tobelo directional adverbs occur:
#on motion verbs to specify direction of motion
#on nouns to specify motion away from or toward an object
Thus, interpretation of directional adverbs is entirely context-dependent. For example,
If I meet you landwards of the house, this means that I'm headed inland from my house.
If I meet you seawards of the house, then it means I'm headed inland to the house.
References
External links
Tobelo Bible App
Further reading
*Holton, Gary. 2003. Tobelo. (Languages of the World/Materials 328). Munich: LINCOM Europa.
*Hueting, Anton. 1908. Tobeloreesch-Hollandsch woordenboek met Hollandsch-Tobeloreesch inhoudsopgave. 's-Gravenhage: Nijhoff.
*Hueting, Anton. 1908. O Tobelohoka manga totoade: verhalen en vertellingen in de Tobeloreesche taal. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië 61.1-318.
*Hueting, Anton. 1936. Iets over de spaakkunst van de Tobeloreesche taal. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië 94.295-407.
*Taylor, Paul Michael. 1984. Tobelorese deixis. Anthropological Linguistics 26.102-22.
*
*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.
{{Languages of Indonesia
Languages of Indonesia
North Halmahera languages