Ternate Malay is a local variety of Malay in Ternate, a small island in the Maluku
Utara province in eastern Indonesia. The majority of speakers live in Ternate
town, where it serves as mother tongue as well as a means of communication
between people of various ethnic and linguistic backgrounds. In the last
few decades there is a growing scholarly interest in local Malay varieties,
particularly in the eastern part of Indonesia. This article is a short description
of Ternate Malay based on the idea that words in Ternate Malay receive their
meaning in the combination with other words and that the linguistic context
as well as the non-linguistic situation in which they occur, determine the most
suitable interpretation of utterances. It is shown how certain words facilitate the
determination of the interpretation.
