Biak ( or 'Biak language'; or 'our language'; Indonesian: ), also known as Biak-Numfor, Noefoor, Mafoor, Mefoor, Nufoor, Mafoorsch, Myfoorsch and Noefoorsch, is an Austronesian language of the South Halmahera-West New Guinea subgroup of the Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages.

According to Ethnologue, it is spoken by about 70,000 people in Biak and Numfor and numerous small islands in the Schouten Islands, located in Papua province of Western New Guinea, northeastern Indonesia.

Name The name Biak or Vyak refers to the island of the same name. It probably comes from an earlier form *Bat, which is argued to have meant "the ground under one's feet, land" in Proto-Austronesian via the regular change of *t to k. This is supported by the Ambel cognate Báyt.

Dialects There are a number of different dialects of Biak spoken on various different islands, the most well-known being Biak-Numfoor, spoken on the island of Numfoor. These dialect differences are minor and mostly limited to slight regular sound changes. The vast majority of Biak speakers are also fluent in the local variety of Malay, but not all of them are proficient in standard Indonesian.

Geographical distributions of Biak dialects within Raja Ampat Regency (Ronsumbre 2020):

Betew dialect Waigeo Selatan District: Saonek, Saporkren, Yenbeser, Yenwaupur, Sawinggrai, Kapisawar, and Arborek villages. Waigeo Barat District: Mutus, Biantsyi, Waisilip, Manyaifun, Meos Manggara, and Pam villages. Kofiau District: Deer, Balal, and Tolobi villages. Misool District: Pulau Tikus, Solol, Meos Kapal, and Umkabu villages. Samate District: Jefman village. Teluk Manyalibit District: Mumes village.

Kafdaron dialect Samate District: Yensawai, Amdui, Yenanas, and Aresi villages

Karon dialect Sausapor District: Sausapor village Bikar (Biak Karon) District, Tambrauw Regency

Usba dialect Waigeo Utara District: Rauki village. Ayau District: Dorekar and Meosbekwan villages.

Wardo dialect Waigeo Timur District: Yensner, Urbinasopen, Yembekaki, and Puper villages. Waigeo Utara District: Menir, Warwanai, Boni, Asukweri, and Kabare villages. Ayau District: Rutung, Reni, and Yenkawir villages.

Sociolinguistic situation Despite the comparatively high number of speakers compared to some other Austronesian languages, Biak is still in danger of extinction. Within the main towns, the generation of speakers aged between 20 and 50 have only passive knowledge of the language and rarely use the language actively, instead preferring to use Malay. Younger generations do not even generally have passive knowledge of the language. Biak is only actively used as a spoken language by members of the community over 50 years of age or so and even they regularly code switch into Malay. However, within the villages further from town there are still children who are fluent in Biak. Songs in Biak are also very popular throughout the islands.

There is a strong initiative to promote the use of the Biak language, with translations of various books and teaching manuals as well as a radio station and a number of church services throughout the year being conducted solely in Biak. Since 2002, there has also been an initiative to introduce Biak being taught formerly in schools on the islands.

Phonology Biak has a phoneme inventory consisting of 13 consonants and 5 vowels, in which vowel length is phonemic. In the orthography long vowels are written with an acute accent. The phoneme is very infrequent in its use and some older speakers still realise it as in loanwords.

+ Consonants Bilabial Labiodental Alveolar Palatal Velar Nasal Plosive Fricative Lateral Trill Semivowel

+ Vowels Front Central Back Close Mid Open The vowel is the only rounded vowel in Biak; the other four are unrounded.

Morphology

Pronouns and person markers In Biak pronouns and articles are morphologically related, with both situating a given participant by indicating their relative discourse or spatial (e.g. directional or motional) status. This is not uncommon for Austronesian Languages. Pronouns in Biak are marked for number and clusivity.

+ Free Pronouns Singular Dual Paucal Plural 1st person 2nd person 3rd person (alienable) (inalienable)

Free personal pronouns in Biak share their main distributional properties with nouns; however, they are somewhat more restricted. They can be used as a complement of a predicate or preposition but they cannot be used as subjects. In the example below, the use of the first-person personal pronoun can be seen to complement a verb, while the second example shows how a free personal pronoun, in this clause third-person , cannot be used as a subject:

Pronominal affixes In Biak, pronominal affixes can combine with verbs in three possible inflection patterns (given in the table below), which are partly phonologically conditioned. Set 1 Set 2 Set 3 1SG ya- y- ya- 2SG wa- w- 3SGi- d- 1DU.I ku- ku- ku- 1DU.E nu- nu- nu- 2DU mu- mu- mu- 3DU su- su- su- 3PC sko- sk- sko- 1PL.I ko- k- ko- 1PL.E (i)nko- (i)nk- (i)nko- 2PL mko- mk- mko- 3PL.AN si- s- s- 3PL.INAN na- n- n-

The presence of a subject noun phrase in the same clause is optional. Thus the following sentence is still grammatical without NP Rusa nanine, while the verb has a pronominal affix that gives the same information.

These pronominal markers are person markers and are found in the final position of the noun phrase they determine. They attach to verbs along with a specifier that attaches after the pronominal affix; due to their distribution properties these markers should be considered clitics. There are two specificity markers, and , where can be used in all positions and is restricted to positions before pauses. In the example below the article attaches to the verb , rather than the verb because it is the final verb in the noun phrase headed by .

Nonspecificity, which refers to entities that do not yet exist in this world, or is used to question or deny the existence of an entity, is marked with the articles for singular and for plural noun phrases. This is shown in the examples below:

Non-specific

Specific

Demonstratives Biak has identical forms in adnominal and pronominal demonstratives, which is common in Austronesian languages. In Biak, demonstratives can be used as part of complex articles containing demonstrative roots and also motion markers and directionals. Complex articles, however, do not have both a directional and a motion marker.

+3SG complex articlesgivperson- SPCdirmotion markerdmmeaningbare demonstrative articleclose S:()'this'close A:()'that'not S/A:()'that over there'demonstrative article, givenclose S:()'this'close A:()'that'not S/A:()'that over there'(given) demonstrative- directional articleclose S:()?'this at the back'close A:()?'that at the back'not S/A:()?'that at the back over there'

The table above restricts person-SPC to 3SG marker for an explanation, but 3SG marker can be replaced (DU), (TR), and (PL.AN) or (PL.INAN). Also, the corpus contains no example of complex articles containing both a directional and a motion marker. Furthermore, and are used as allomorphs of and , respectively, but attested in article-final position only.

In Biak, the relationship between the third-person pronouns and demonstratives are unrelated to demonstratives, which is uncommon in Austronesian languages. However, Biak follows the worldwide trend in terms of the relationship.

Moreover, depending on the speaker's relative distance, Biak has three-way distance contrasts of adnominal demonstratives, which is common in Austronesian languages. The comparison is restricted to only adnominal use because some languages do not express the same distance contrasts in adnominal and pronominal demonstratives.

If a complex article contains a demonstrative, the demonstrative is preceded by person-, as illustrated by and , respectively. Also, in the below examples, situational use of demonstratives is shown.

The paradigm for complex articles sets the basis for deictic nouns, predicative pronouns, and locative-existentials.

Deictic nouns Deictic nouns are formed by applying the formative 'place' at the position preceding demonstratives, as illustrated by 'place-back-over.there' and 'place-here.'

The situational use of demonstratives is seen in (9). On the other hand, (10) shows 'this' as the situational use of demonstratives and 'here' as the anaphoric use of demonstratives.

Predicative pronouns Predicative pronouns are formed by using the inflected predicative is 'PRED' at the position otherwise occupied by the marker of givenness an. This is illustrated by '3SG.PRED-SPC-this' in both (11) and (12).

In (11), it depends on the context whether situational or anaphoric use of the demonstrative is. Situational use of the demonstrative is given in (12).

Locative-existentials Locative-existentials is different from predicative pronouns because they do not possess a specificity marker, which is illustrated by '3SG.PRED-over.there'.

In (13), the use of the demonstrative depends on the context.

Semantics

Demonstratives +Use of demonstratives, where Viewpoint (V)= speaker(S), R= Relatum, A=addresseeformglossused to refer to entities conceived as:Levinson's terminologythisclose to S, but not closer to A than to Sclose to V (usually S) =Rthatrelatively close to S (and A), but not closer to S than to ARelatively close to V (usually S) =R1, not closer to V than to R2 (usually A).that over thereaway from shared area of both S and AAway from R1 (usually S) and R2 (usually A)

For the semantic characterization of demonstratives, a part of Levinson's terminology should be known to grasp the difference between the Figure and the Ground or the Relatum. The Figure refers to an entity positioned somewhere in Space, while the Ground or the Relatum designate the entity in terms of where the entity is.  

As additional information, there are three essential points about Levinson's terminology. First, the 'frame of reference' can be classified as an intrinsic frame of reference, a relative frame of reference, and an absolute frame of reference. Second, it is crucial to grasp the origo of the coordinate system. The deictic centre called origo is approximately equal to the speaker's position. Third, it is vital to comprehend deixis. For spatial deixis, the interpretation of spatial linguistics elements is defined by the location of extra-linguistic entities.

Regarding the demonstratives usage, it may be followed by pointing, such as lip-pointing, head pointing, or finger pointing.

Syntax

Demonstratives From a perspective of syntax, Deictic nouns typically set the complement of a preposition. This is clear from the form 'place-here,' 'place-over.there' in (14) and (15), respectively. However, the demonstrative locational nouns are used on their own, without a preceding preposition. This is illustrated by 'place-here' in (16).

In (14), (15), and (16), these contain the situational use of demonstratives.

Possession Similar to other Austronesian languages, Biak makes a grammatical distinction between alienable and inalienable for possession.

Alienable possession In alienable possession, a possessive pronominal is formed with the possessive marker to signify the person, number and gender of the possessor, and is followed by a pronominal article marking the gender and number of the possessed. The pronominal article contains the specificity markers and , with being used only in pre-pausal positions. The following table illustrates the possessive pronominal construction.