Galela is the second most populousPapuan language spoken west ofNew 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 theLoloda language.

Galela is spoken on the eastern side of the northern tip ofHalmahera island (inGalela district and in neighbouring villages in Tobelo and Loloda districts), onMorotai Island to the north, on theBacan andObi islands to the south of Halmahera, and in scattered settlements along the southwest coast. All are inNorth Maluku province ofIndonesia.

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

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

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

Galela has two free pronoun sets, and two sets of bound pronominal prefixes.^[2][3][4] The use of the pronominal prefixes is governed bysemantic 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.

• Materials on Galela are included in the open accessArthur Capell collection (AC2) held byParadisec.

• Languages of Indonesia
• North Halmahera languages
• Papuan language stubs

• Language articles citing Ethnologue 25
• CS1: long volume value
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