Gebe language
Austronesian language spoken in North Maluku, Indonesia
Gebe, or Minyaifuin, is an Austronesian language of eastern Indonesia, spoken on the Gebe, Yu, and Gag islands between Halmahera and Waigeo.
01Dialects
The Gebe language is divided into five dialects spoken on three separate islands, as follows:
- The Gag dialect is spoken on Gag Island, the dialect is almost similar to the Umera dialect because the population migrated from there.
- The Nuclear Gebe dialect is the most widely used dialect, spoken in the settlement centers on Gebe Island, including the villages of Elfanun, Kacepi, Kapaleo, Sanafi, and Yam.
- The Umera dialect is spoken in Umera village, located in the southeastern part of Gebe Island.
- The Umiyal dialect is spoken in Umiyal, the only village on Yu Island.
- The Sanafkacepo dialect is spoken in Sanafkacepo village on the east coast of Gebe Island.
02Phonology
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| Plosive/ Affricate |
voiceless | p | t | tʃ | k | (ʔ) |
| voiced | b | d | ɡ | |||
| Fricative | f | s | h | |||
| Rhotic | r | |||||
| Lateral | l | |||||
| Approximant | w | j | ||||
[ʔ] only appears when within the sequence of vowels in syllable-final positions.
Voiced sounds /b, d/ may also be articulated by speakers as implosive sounds [ɓ, ɗ] when in word-initial or intervocalic positions.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Gebe language”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
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