ABSTRACT
The Buol language (apadu Vuolo) is spoken by about 75,000 people (Grimes 1996) in the kabupaten (regency) Buol in Central Sulawesi (see Wurm and Hattori 1983, Map 43). Buol is the westernmost member of the Gorontalo-Mongondic subgroup and belongs to its Gorontalic branch. Within the Gorontalic branch, Buol is most closely related to Gorontalo, spoken to the east of the Buol area. The western neighbor of Buol is Totoli, which does not belong to the Gorontalo-Mongondic subgroup, but which has shared with Buol a long period of mutual influence, especially lexically. Language use is still vigorous, although in certain areas where many outsiders are present (e.g. at the harbor area of Leok or in parts of Paleleh that are rich in natural resources), some young people only have a limited command of Buol. Until now, dialect variation has hardly been investigated.
