North Moluccan Malay (also known as Ternate Malay) is a Malay-based creole language spoken on Ternate, Tidore, Morotai, Halmahera, and Sula Islands in North Maluku for intergroup communications. The local name of the language is bahasa Pasar (literally 'market language'), and the name Ternate Malay is also used, after the main ethnic group speaking the language. It is commonly written using Indonesian orthography. One of its varieties is Sula Malay, which was formed with the influence of Ambonese Malay.
A large percentage of this language's lexicon has been borrowed from Ternatean, such as, ngana 'you (sg.)', ngoni 'you (pl.)', bifi 'ant', and fuma 'stupid', and its syntax and semantics have received heavy influence from the surrounding West Papuan languages. Other vernacular forms of Malay spoken in eastern Indonesia, such as Manado Malay and Papuan Malay, are said to be derived from an earlier form of North Moluccan Malay.
Phonology
Vowels The vowel system of North Moluccan Malay consists of five vowel phonemes and five diphthongs.
+ North Moluccan Malay vowels Front Central Back Close Mid Open
The five diphthongs are , , , and .
Consonants North Moluccan Malay has eighteen consonants and two semivowels.
+North Moluccan Malay consonants Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal Nasal Plosive Fricative Lateral Trill Semivowel
Grammar
Possession In Ternate Malay, words do not align its forms with its grammatical roles; therefore, the functions of words are often determined by linguistic context and non-linguistic situation. In this case, possessions are often used as a tool to determine the borders of constituents for the sake of successful interpretation of word meanings and functions.
Generally, words in Ternate Malay are often constructed in head-initial structure, except from the two possessive constructions – Y pe X constructions and YX constructions, where words are constructed in head-final structure.
Y pe X constructions In the Y pe X construction, the Y element refers to the modifier (possessor) while the X element refers to the head (possessum). The possessor and possessum are connected by pe, in which the possessum expresses de facto a nominal meaning. In English, the Y pe X constructions gives the meaning of ‘Y’s X’ and ‘the X of Y’.
According to Litamahuputty, Y pe X construction can express different meanings ranging from possession in animate subjects and inanimate subjects to non-possessive meanings. The examples below are extracted from Litamahuputty to illustrate situations when Y pe X construction is used to express possessions.
Non-human relationships
X is part of Y In example (1), tong pe kaki is a possessive construction where the possessor tong ‘the first person plural – our’ is connected to the possessum kaki ‘leg’ using pe. Together, the construction gives the meaning of ‘our leg’, in which the leg is a part of ‘our’ body, demonstrating the relationship of ‘X is part of Y’
X is a product of Y In example (2), ular pe bisa is a possessive construction where the possessor ular ‘snake’ is connected to the possessum bisa ‘venom’ using pe. Together, the construction means ‘the snake’s venom’, in which the venom is produced by the snake, demonstrating the relationship of ‘X is a product of Y’.
X is a feature of Y In example (3), motor pe warna is a possessive construction where the possessor motor ‘motorcycle’ is connected to the possessum warna ‘colour’ using pe. Together, the construction gives the meaning of ‘the colour of the motorcycle’, in which the colour is one of the features (such as shape, model, engine…etc.) of the motorcycle, demonstrating the relationship of ‘X is a feature of Y’.
Human relationships
Social relationship In example (4), bank pe bini is a possessive construction where the possessor bank ‘bank employee’ is connected to the possessum bini ‘wife’ using pe. Together, the construction brings the meaning of ‘the bank employees’ wives’, which expresses the social relationship between the humane animates.
Kinship relationship In example (5), Fadin pe kaka is a possessive construction where the possessor Fadin (a proper noun) is connected to the possessum kaka ‘older sibling’. Together, the construction gives the meaning of ‘Fadin’s older brother’, which expresses the kinship relationship between the two humane animates.
Time relationships
Future relationship Example (6) is about a story of how the speaker accidentally spilled hot oil on himself.
In the possessive construction de pe beso, the possessor de ‘third person singular’ refers to the day of incident, where the possessum beso ‘tomorrow’ refers to the day after the incident. Future time relationship is shown between the day of incident and the day after the incident.
Past relationship Example (7) is about the journey of the speaker and his friends in an island where he heard a strange voice.
In the possessive construction de pe kalamareng malang, the possessor de ‘third person singular’ refers to the moment when the speaker was talking, where the possessum kalamareng malang ‘yesterday night’ refers to the night before that moment, demonstrating past time relationship between the time when the speaker heard strange voice and the time he talked.
Human Quality
Quality In Example (8), de pe bae is a possessive expression where the possessor de ‘third person singular – his’ is connected to the possesum bae ‘kindness’ with pe. The expression has the meaning of ‘his kindness’, demonstrating a quality of the humane subject.
This relationship is similar to X is a feature of Y which was demonstrated earlier, where example (8) refers to an animate and example (3) refers to an inanimate.
From the above examples, it can be seen that wide ranges of possessions, including possessions in human, animals, objects or even abstract items like time, can be demonstrated from the Y pe X constructions.
As mentioned earlier, word functions in Ternate Malay are often determined from contexts rather than word forms. Therefore, not all Y pe X constructions show possessive meanings. The examples below demonstrate situations where Y pe X construction is used to express meanings other than possession, for example, to express evaluative meanings or additional information:
When the possessum (X) denotes a quality with exclamative markers, it has an evaluative meaning rather than a possessive meaning. In example (9), the Y element in the Y pe X construction ‘ngana pe capat’ is ngana, which refers to ‘second person singular’; and the X element is capa’, which refers to ‘fast’.
Since the sentence is expressed in exclamative intonations, which can be shown from the exclamation mark used at the end of the sentence and the use of ih (the exclamative expression), the construction has the evaluative meaning of ‘how fast you are!’ rather than a possessive meaning of referring the ‘quality of fastness’ to the subject.
When the possessum (X) denotes an action or activity, it supplies additional information to the action or activity rather than showing possessions. In example (10), the Y element in the Y pe X construction ‘paitua pe cuci balanga’ is paitua, which refers to ‘old man’; and the X element is cuci balanga, which refers to ‘to wash a wok’.
The example provided extra information on what surprised the speaker rather than showing possession between the old man and his way of washing a wok.
YX constructions In the YX construction, the Y element refers to the modifier (possessor), which is often a personal pronoun or a kinship term; and the X element refers to the head (possessum), which is often a thing word. The construction also has a meaning of ‘Y’s X’ and ‘the X of Y’ in English. The examples below are extracted from Litamahuputty, which demonstrated the use of element Y as a personal pronoun and kinship term in YX constructions:
Possessor Y as a personal pronoun Example (11) has demonstrated the use of YX construction with element Y as a personal pronoun, where the possessor dong refers to ‘third person plural’ and the possessum parau refers to ‘boat’. Together, it has the meaning of ‘their boat’ .
Possessor Y as a kinship term Example (12) has demonstrated the use of YX construction with element Y as a kinship term, where the possessor tete refers to grandfather and the possessum papa refers to father. Together, the expression has the meaning of ‘the grandfather’s father’, demonstrating the kinship relationship.
Personal pronouns Personal pronouns in North Moluccan Malay only distinguish between person (first, second and third person) and number (singular and plural). Some pronouns can also be used to show respect to other speakers.
Person Singular Plural Full Shortened Full Shortened 1 kita, saya (respectful) ta (ki)torang tong 2 ngana nga ngoni ngo 3 dia de dorang dong
Politeness The use of the first person singular pronouns kita and saya is dependent on the speech situation. Kita is used when talking to others of the same or lower age, rank or status. On the other hand, saya is used in more formal situations or when conversing with someone with a higher rank or status, to show respect to the other person.
The second person singular and plural pronouns, ngana and ngoni also share a similar distinction. Ngana is used to refer to an addressee if they of the same or lower age, rank or status. Otherwise speakers may use personal names or kinship terms to refer to the addressee. Alternatively, the plural second person pronoun ngoni can occasionally be used to refer to a single addressee respectfully, although it is typically reserved for addressing a group of people.
These distinctions are demonstrated in example (1) where the speaker telling his friends of a situation where he explains to a woman that he does not want to accept money for helping to carry her shopping onto the bus. Since he is talking to his friends he refers to himself as kita, but because he is not familiar with the woman he uses the more respectful saya to refer to himself and ngoni to address her.
Full and shortened forms For pronouns with a full and shortened form, the two forms may be used interchangeably in most contexts. However, following the conjunction deng or prepositions (such as di, ka, dari or pa) only the full form may be used. This is seen in example (2) where the short form de is used except following the preposition pa, where the full forms dia and torang appear instead:
In addition, the shortened forms do not appear post-verbally (i.e. after predicates). Hence in the following example tong cannot appear after the verb bunu "kill", only the full form torang is allowed:
The full form of the first person plural pronoun torang is actually a shortening of kitorang which is sometimes used by older speakers however younger speakers rarely use this form.
The only exceptions to the two restrictions mentioned above is when the pronoun is part of a Y pe X possessive construction in which case the shortened form may be used as the possessor Y. Example (4) shows a possessive Y pe X construction containing the first person plural short form pronoun dong occurring after a preposition pa:
Similarly, example (5) shows the third person singular short form pronoun de occurring after the verb iko "follow" also as part of a Y pe X possessive construction. This contrasts with the use of the full form dia after the second instance of iko, where the pronoun is no longer part of a possessive construction:
Negation North Moluccan Malay uses predicate operators to express negation (negators). Predicate operators are used to express certain meaning aspects, they also act as a grammatical function by showing that the construction in which they take part in is best to be interpreted as predicate. tara 'not (present)' and bukang 'not' are two negators that are frequently used to negate predicates in this language.