Galela language

Galela is the second most populous Papuan language spoken west of New Guinea, with some 80,000 speakers. Its dialects are Kadai (41,000), Morotai (24,000), Kadina (10,000), and Sopi (4,000). Its closest relative is the Loloda language.

Galela
Native to	Indonesia
Region	North Halmahera
Native speakers	(79,000 cited 1990)[1]
Language family	West Papuan? North Halmahera Galela–Tobelo Galela
Language codes
ISO 639-3	gbi
Glottolog	gale1259

Galela is spoken on the eastern side of the northern tip of Halmahera island (in Galela district and in neighbouring villages in Tobelo and Loloda districts), on Morotai Island to the north, on the Bacan and Obi islands to the south of Halmahera, and in scattered settlements along the southwest coast. All are in North Maluku province of Indonesia.

Phonology

The following sound inventory is based on Shelden (1998).^[2]

Vowels

Galela has a simple five vowel system: /a/, /i/, /u/, /e/, /o/.

Consonants

Galela orthography largely follows Indonesian spelling conventions. If orthography differs from IPA, the orthography is in ⟨brackets⟩.

		Labial	Alveolar		Palato-alveolar/ Palatal	Velar	Glottal
			Laminal	Apical
Nasal		m	n		ɲ ⟨ny⟩	ŋ ⟨ng⟩
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t		t͡ʃ ⟨c⟩	k
	voiced	b	d̻ ⟨ḋ⟩	d̺ ⟨d⟩	d͡ʒ ⟨j⟩	g
Fricative		ɸ ⟨f⟩	s				h
Flap			ɾ
Lateral			l
Semivowel		w			j ⟨y⟩

Grammar

Pronouns

Galela has two free pronoun sets, and two sets of bound pronominal prefixes.^[2][3][4] The use of the pronominal prefixes is governed by semantic alignment: actor prefixes are used to index the S-argument of active intransitive verbs and the A-argument of transitive verbs, while undergoer prefixes index the S-argument of stative intransitive verbs and the P-argument of transitive verbs.

			independent	possessive	actor	undergoer
1st person	singular		ngohi	ai	to-	i-
	plural	exclusive	ngomi	mia	mi-	mi-
		inclusive	ngone	nanga	po-	na-
2nd person	singular		ngona	ani	no-	ni-
	plural		ngini	nia	ni-	ni-
3rd person	singular	masc	una	awi	wo-	wi-
		fem	muna	ami	mo-	mi-
	plural	human	ona	manga	yo-	ya-
	non-human		i	ma	i-	ḋa-

External links

• Materials on Galela are included in the open access Arthur Capell collection (AC2) held by Paradisec.

References

1. Galela at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
2. Shelden, Howard (1998). "Transitivity and Galela pronominal reference". SIL Electronic Working Papers. 1998–005.
3. van Baarda, M. J. (1904). "Het Lòda'sch, in vergelijking met het Galela'sch dialect op Halmaheira" [Lòda'sch, compared to the Galela'sch dialect on Halmaheira]. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië (in Dutch). 56 (3/4): 317–496. doi:10.1163/22134379-90002009.
4. Holton, Gary (2008). "The rise and fall of semantic alignment in North Halmahera, Indonesia". In Donohue, Mark; Wichmann, Søren (eds.). The Typology of Semantic Alignment. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 252–276.