ABSTRACT
The Moluccas comprise about 1300 islands, which nowadays form the Province of Maluku in the East of the Republic of Indonesia. The islands are grouped into four major subdistricts: Maluku Utara and Halmahera Tengah in the North, comprising the island of Halmahera and surrounding islands, 2 Maluku Tengah (‘Central Maluku’) in the middle, comprising the island of Seram and surrounding islands, and in the South Maluku Tenggara (‘Southeast Maluku’) to which belongs the string of islands that stretches from the Aru Archipelago off the coast of New Guinea to the island of Wetar off the tip of East Timor. No information to date is available on the number of languages found in Maluku. On the basis of recent research by the Summer Institute of Linguistics, the Atlas bahasa tanah Maluku mentions a total of 117 definitely identified different languages. 3
