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Grimes & Grimes’s research on the Austronesian language group in North Maluku
showed that both the Central and Eastern Malayo Polynesian languages can be found
in this area while Western Malayo-Polynesian was found in this region supposedly
brought by the migrants. Grimes & Grimes calculations based on lexicostatistic data in
North Maluku showed that the three groups of Malayo-Polynesian languages had basic
vocabulary similarities of about 15-25%. The linkage between Central Malayo-Polynesian
was represented by Mangole language of Sula islands with Maba language which was
considered to represent Eastern Malayo-Polynesian language groups in South Halmahera,
indicating 17% basic vocabularies similarities. In contrast, the Malayo-Polynesian language
group which was represented by the Pamona language in Central Sulawesi had the same
basic vocabulary by 16% only with the Maba language known from East Polynesian
Malay group. However, the relationship between the Mangole language (Central Malayo-
Polynesian) and the Gebe language in the Raja Ampat Islands, Papua, seemed closer since
the two languages had a common basic vocabulary of 43%. Both of them were in the same
phylum, namely East Malayo-Polynesian or Melanesian. The affinities of other languages
are shown in the following figure Grimes and Grimes (1984: 40).
The grammatical feature of Austronesian language group is subject-verb-object
(SVO). The following example is taken from a study of Gamkonora speakers in West
Halmahera by Bowden (2013: 92-93). Tagi o ‘o. Tagi shows the first person pronoun (I),
and o’o is in the direction of the sea. So, tagi o’o means I go to the (direction) of the sea.
The sentence does not mean I go to the sea (as understood in Indonesian) because the
direction intended by the speaker of Gamkonora is a metaphorical sense. Another example
is Tagi tala which means in Indonesian: “I go down” “down” as well as “to sea” shows the
direction metaphorically. Such unique ways of giving directions are a characteristic of
non-Austronesian group languages.

Non-Austronesian Language Family
In 1915, Van Der Veen stated that languages in North Halmahera had the characteristics
of non-Austronesian which were also similar to the characteristics of languages in West
Papua, especially in the Bird’s Head region. Since that time, people began to notice the link
between two areas of the non Austronesian language family.
Grimes and Grimes’ (Grimes and Grimes, 1984) research used a lexicostatistic method
to measure language kinship by comparing the percentage of similarity within the basic
vocabulary. The greater the percentage of similarity of the basic vocabulary, the closer

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