Gebe language

Gebe
Minyaifuin
Native to	Indonesia
Native speakers	(2,700 cited 2000)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian Eastern Malayo-Polynesian South Halmahera–West New Guinea Raja Ampat–South Halmahera South Halmahera Gebe
Language codes
ISO 639-3	gei
Glottolog	gebe1237
ELP	Gebe

Gebe, or Minyaifuin, is an Austronesian language of eastern Indonesia, spoken on the Gebe islands between Halmahera and Waigeo.

Phonology

Consonants

		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.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Close-mid	e		o
Open-mid	ɛ		ɔ
Open		a	ɑ

Further reading

• Bax, Marton Miklós Willem (2019). A sketch grammar of Gebe: a language of North Maluku. Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden.
• Burhanuddin, Burhanuddin; Sumarlam, Sumarlam; Mahsun, Mahsun (2017). "Kedudukan bahasa Gebe di Halmahera Tengah Maluku Utara: Studi pendahuluan dari aspek linguistik historis". Arkhais: Jurnal Ilmu Bahasa dan Sastra Indonesia. 8 (1): 1–7. doi:10.21009/ARKHAIS.081.01.