Counting in Tobelo
Language overview
Tobelo is a North Halmahera language that belongs to the West Papuan languages family. It is spoken on the eastern Indonesian island of Halmahera and on parts of several neighboring islands. Tobelo counts about 30,000 native speakers.
Due to lack of data, we can only count accurately up to 100 in Tobelo. Please contact me if you can help me counting up from that limit.
Tobelo numbers list
- 1 – moi
- 2 – hinóto
- 3 – hange
- 4 – iata
- 5 – motoa
- 6 – butanga
- 7 – tumidi
- 8 – tuhange
- 9 – hiwo
- 10 – ngimoi
- 11 – ngimoi de moi
- 12 – ngimoi de hinóto
- 13 – ngimoi de hange
- 14 – ngimoi de iata
- 15 – ngimoi de motoa
- 16 – ngimoi de butanga
- 17 – ngimoi de tumidi
- 18 – ngimoi de tuhange
- 19 – ngimoi de hiwo
- 20 – monaoko
- 30 – moruange
- 40 – moruata
- 50 – moritoa
- 60 – moributanga
- 70 – moritumidi
- 80 – morituhange
- 90 – morihiwo
- 100 – o ratuhu
- 1,000 – o saana
Tobelo numbering rules
Now that you’ve had a gist of the most useful numbers, let’s move to the writing rules for the tens, the compound numbers, and why not the hundreds, the thousands and beyond (if possible).
- Digits from one to nine are rendered by specific words, namely moi [1], hinóto [2], hange (or ruange) [3], iata (or ruata) [4], motoa [5], butanga [6], tumidi [7], tuhange [8] (5+3), and hiwo [9].
- Tens are formed starting with either the prefix mo for thirty and forty, or the prefix mori from fifty to ninety, directly followed by the multiplier digit, while ten and twenty are exceptions: ngimoi [10], monaoko [20], moruange [30], moruata [40], moritoa [50], moributanga [60], moritumidi [70], morituhange [80], and morihiwo [90].
- Compound numbers are formed starting with the ten, then the conjunction de, and the unit (e.g.: monaoko de tuhange [28], morituhange de hange [83]).
- One hundred is o ratuhu [100], borrowed from the Malay ratus.
- One thousand is o saana [1,000], borrowed from the Malay.
Write a number in full in Tobelo
Let’s move now to the practice of the numbering rules in Tobelo. Will you guess how to write a number in full? Enter a number and try to write it down in your head, or maybe on a piece of paper, before displaying the result.
Books
Tobelo
by Gary Holton, editors LINCOM publishers (2003)
[
Amazon.com]
Source
- Numeral classifiers and number in two Papuan outliers of East Nusantara (pdf), by Gary Holton, in Papers from 12-ICAL, Volume 1 (2014)
Trans-New Guinea languages
Abui, Huli, Lavukaleve, Ndom, Savosavo, Sawila, Tobelo, Tolaki, and Western Pantar.
Other supported languages
As the other currently supported languages are too numerous to list extensively here, please select a language from the full list of supported languages.