West Makian language

Not to be confused with Moi language (Papua).
West Makian
Moi
Native toIndonesia
RegionWestern part of Makian island and much of Kayoa.
Native speakers
(12,000 cited 1977)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3mqs
Glottologwest2600
ELPMoi (Maluku, Indonesia)

West Makian (also known by the endonym Moi[2]: 104 ) is a divergent North Halmahera language of Indonesia. It is spoken on the coast near Makian Island, and on the western half of that island.

West Makian has been strongly influenced by a neighboring Austronesian language or languages to the extent that it was once classified as Austronesian, as East Makian (Taba) still is. As a family-level isolate, it is not closely related to any other language.[3][4] A brief description of the language can be found in Voorhoeve (1982). Much influence comes from Taba, as well as Malay, Ternate, Dutch, and potentially Portuguese.[1]

  1. ^ a b Voorhoeve, C. L. (1982). "The Makian languages and their neighbours". www.language-archives.org. Retrieved 2019-01-30.
  2. ^ Klamer, Marian; Ger Reesink; and Miriam van Staden. 2008. East Nusantara as a Linguistic Area. In Pieter Muysken (ed.), From linguistic areas to areal linguistics, 95-149. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
  3. ^ Gary Holton, Marian Klamer (2018), "The Papuan languages of East Nusantara and the Bird's Head", in Bill Palmer (ed.), The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide, The World of Linguistics, vol. 4, Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, pp. 569–640, ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7
  4. ^ Gary F. Simons, Charles D. Fennig (2018). "Makian, West" (21 ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Ethnologue. Archived from the original on 2018-06-23.