Taba is a Malayo-Polynesian language of the South Halmahera – West New Guinea group. It is spoken mostly on the islands of Makian

Makian

Makian is a volcanic island, one of the Maluku Islands in Indonesia...

, Kayoa and southern Halmahera

Halmahera

Halmahera is the largest island in the Maluku Islands. It is part of the North Maluku province of Indonesia.Halmahera has a land area of 17,780 km² and a population in 1995 of 162,728...

 in North Maluku

North Maluku

North Maluku is a province of northeastern Indonesia. It covers the northern part of the Maluku Islands, which are split between it and the province of Maluku. Maluku province used to cover the entire group...

 province of Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

 by about 20,000 people.

Dialects

There are minor differences in dialect between all of the villages on Makian island in which Taba is spoken. Most differences affect only a few words. One of the most widespread reflexes is the use of /o/ in Waikyon and Waigitang, where in other villages /a/ is retained from Proto-South Halmaheran.

Geographic Distribution

As of 2005, Ethnologue lists Taba as having a speaking population of approximately 20,000, however, it has been argued by Linguists that this number could in reality be anywhere between 20,000 and 50,000. The language is predominantly spoken in Eastern Makian Island, although it is also found on Southern Mori Island, Kayoa islands, Bacan and Obi island and along the west coast of south Halmahera. There has also been continued migration of speakers to North Maluku due to frequent volcanic eruptions on Makian island. The island itself is home to two languages: Taba, which is spoken on the eastern side of the island, and a Papuan language spoken on the western side, known alternatively as West Makian

West Makian language

West Makian is the most divergent of the Papuan languages of Halmahera. It is spoken on the coast near Makian Island, and on the western half of that island. It has been strongly influenced by an Austronesian language or languages, and was once classified as Austronesian, as the East Makian...

 or Makian Luar (outer Makian); in Taba, this language is known as Taba Lik ("Outer Taba"), while its native speakers know it as Moi.

Speech Levels

Taba is divided into three different levels of speech: alus, biasa and kasar.

Alus, or ‘refined’ Taba is used in situations in which the speaker is addressing someone older or of greater status

Social status

In sociology or anthropology, social status is the honor or prestige attached to one's position in society . It may also refer to a rank or position that one holds in a group, for example son or daughter, playmate, pupil, etc....

 than the speaker themselves.

Biasa, or ‘ordinary’ Taba, is used in most general situations.

The Kasar, or ‘coarse’ form of Taba is used only rarely and generally in anger.

Phonology

Taba has fifteen indigenous consonant phonemes, and four loan phonemes: /ʔ/,/dʒ/, /tʃ/, and /f/. These are shown below:

Consonants

	Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...	Apico-alveolar	Lamino-palatal	Dorso-velar	Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
Stop Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...	b  p	d  t		g  k	(ʔ)
Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...	m	n		ŋ
Affricate Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...			(dʒ  tʃ)
Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...	(f)	s
Trill Trill consonant In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular....			r
Lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth....			l
Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...	w		j		h

Taba has five vowels, illustrated on the table below. The front and central vowels are unrounded

Roundedness

In phonetics, vowel roundedness refers to the amount of rounding in the lips during the articulation of a vowel. That is, it is vocalic labialization. When pronouncing a rounded vowel, the lips form a circular opening, while unrounded vowels are pronounced with the lips relaxed...

; the back vowels are rounded.

Vowels

	Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also...	Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel...	Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...
Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the...	i  i:		u  u:
Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel...	e  e:		o  o:
Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue...		a  a:

Word Order

Taba is, predominantly, a head-marking language

Head-marking language

A head-marking language is one where the grammatical marks showing relations between different constituents of a phrase tend to be placed on the heads of the phrase in question, rather than the modifiers or dependents. In a noun phrase, the head is the main noun and the dependents are the...

 which adheres to a basic AVO word order

Word order

In linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the order of the syntactic constituents of a language, and how different languages can employ different orders. Correlations between orders found in different syntactic subdomains are also of interest...

. However, there is a reasonable degree of flexibility.

(1)	yak	k=ha-lekat	pakakas	ne
	1SG	1SG=CAUS-broken	tool	PROX
	"I broke this tool."

Taba has both prepositions and postpositions.

Pronouns

Independent Pronouns

Person Grammatical person Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...	| Number Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
	Singular	Plural
1INC		tit
1EXCL	yak	am
2	au	meu
3	i	si

In Taba, independent pronouns cannot be used to refer to inanimate entities.

Person

Person is also marked on proclitics which are attached to verb phrases, as can be seen below:

(1)	yak	k=wom
	1SG	1SG=come
	"I've come."

Number

Number is marked on noun phrases and pronouns. Taba distinguishes grammatically between singular and plural categories. Plural marking is obligatory for humans and is used for all noun phrases which refer to multiple individuals. Plurality is also used to indicate respect in the second and third person when addressing or speaking of an individual who is older than the speaker.

(1)	nim	mama	lo	baba=si	l-ha=obal-k
	2SG.POSS	mother	and	father=PL	3PL=CAUS-call-APPL
	"That goat, I own in it."

Possession

Taba does not, as such, have possessive pronouns. Rather, the possessor noun and the possessed entity are linked by a possessive ligature. The Taba ligatures are shown below:

Possessive Particles

Person Grammatical person Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...	| Number Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
	Singular	Plural
1INC		nit
1EXCL	nik	am
2	nim	meu
3	ni	nidi/di

Adnominal Possession

Adnominal possession

Possession (linguistics)

Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which possesses the referent of the other ....

 involves the introduction of an inflected possessive particle

Grammatical particle

In grammar, a particle is a function word that does not belong to any of the inflected grammatical word classes . It is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of words and terms that lack a precise lexical definition...

 between the possessor and the possessed entity; this inflected possessive, formally categorised as a ‘ligature’, is cross-referenced with the number and person of the possessor. This ligature indicates a possessive relationship between a modifier noun and its head-noun. In Taba, adnominal possession is distinguished by reverse genitive

Genitive case

In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...

 ordering, in which the possessor noun precedes the noun referring to the possessed entity.

In many contexts the possessor will not be overtly referenced.

Example of reverse genitive ordering in Taba:

(1)	ni	mtu
	3SG.POSS	child
	"His/her child."

Obligatory Possessive Marking

In Taba, alienable and inalienable possession is not obligatorily marked by the use of different forms, though this is common in many related languages. However, there are a number of seemingly inalienable entities which cannot be referred to without referencing a possessor.

For example:

(2)	meja	ni	wwe
	table	3SG.POSS	leg
	"The leg (of the table)."

Verbal Possession

Verbal possession in Taba is generally indicated through the attaching of the causative prefix ha- to the adnominal possessive forms. The possessor then becomes actor of the clause, and the possessed entity becomes the undergoer. This method of forming a possessive verb is very unusual, typologically, and is found in almost no other languages.

(3)	kabin	da	yak	k=ha-nik
	goat	DIST	1SG	1SG=CAUS-1SG.POSS
	"That goat, I own in it."

Name Taboo (Aroah)

As is common with many Melanesian people, Taba speakers practice ritual name taboo. As such, when a person dies in a Taba community, their name may not be used by any person with whom they had a close connection. This practice adheres to the Makianese belief that, if the names of the recently deceased are uttered, their spirits may be drastically disturbed. The deceased may be referred to simply as ‘Deku’s mother’ or ‘Dula’s sister’. Others in the community with the same name as the deceased will be given maronga, or substitute names.