Tobati Language

Tobati [tti] is a nearly extinct language in Papua with approximately 100 active speakers nowadays. Both Youtefa and Enggros are also widely used as other alternative names of Tobati language. This language is administratively located in Papua province, Jayapura regency, Abepura district, Tobati, Enggros, and Entrop villages, which involve some areas near Youtefa Bay (Eberhard et al., 2025). Tobati is classified as an Austronesian language, particularly Austronesian, Malayo-Polynesian, Eastern Malayo-Polynesian, Oceanic, Western Oceanic, North New Guinea, Sarmi-Jayapura Bay, Jayapura Bay, Eastern Jaya`pura Bay (Hammarström et al., 2024). Due to the proximity of this language to urban areas in Jayapura and the influence of modernization, the number of speakers has gradually declined. Nevertheless, several revitalization efforts of Tobati have been conducted to strengthen the use of this language, such as making dictionaries and learning materials for primary students.

A boat and some houses in Tobati village (Photo by Wira Kafryawan, August 12 2022)

There are 12 clans inhabiting these villages, including Hamadi, Itar, Ireuw, Hai, Atar, Dawir, Mano, Hababuk, Ijama, Srem-Srem, Merauje, and Haser. A social system among the clans hereditarily prevails and it regulates the rights and responsibilities of land and sea. They still live in traditional houses with wooden floors and walls, and several houses were built on the water. Commonly, they also use traditional canoes made from tree trunks with the middle part scraped out. Apart from fishing, they also use these canoes as the main transportation to reach the mainland in Jayapura. They row the canoes for about 10 minutes and the trip is quite pleasant because there are relatively few waves. Some customary activities, such as planting and harvesting sago, have ceased because the urban areas have now taken over all of the customary land, especially in Entrop.

Tobati represents some unique features of Austronesian language. In lexicon, numbers are spoken such as tei for one, ros for two, tor for three, au for four, and mniam for five, while colours involve mesi for red and yan for yellow. Other words related to living things are anuang for crow, ic for fish, airauk for leaf, and sou for sugarcane. Adjectives are nusjec for angry, wani for good, and rendomi for dark, whereas verbs are romat for see, mermar for laugh, and undukat for sleep. In phonology, consonants are similar to those of common Austronesian languages, with additional sounds such as /ɸ/, /É£/, and /ʃ/. Demonstratives are located following NP, for examples ajari ndo for that fire. Word order is very unusual with the structure of OSV, taking the example mada ntrica awat for they fear snakes (Donohue, 2002).              

References

Donohue, M. (2002). Tobati. In J. Lynch, M. Ross, & T. Crowley (Eds.), The oceanic languages (pp. 186–203). Routledge.

Eberhard, D. M., Simon, G. F., & Fennig, C. D. (Eds.). (2025). Ethnologue: Language of the world (28th ed.). SIL International. https://www.ethnologue.com

Hammarström, H., Forkel, R., Haspelmath, M., & Bank, S. (2024). Glottolog 5.1. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. http://glottolog.org