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
Dialects	Gag Nuclear Gebe Umera Umiyal Sanafkacepo
Language codes
ISO 639-3	gei
Glottolog	gebe1237
ELP	Gebe

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

Dialects

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.

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.