Ambon Creole ➞ English Dictionary

Now available as an online tool!

This is an online dictionary translating the language used in Ambon (and to some degree in Maluku more widely) into English. In future the data presented here will be adapted to a print volume, so if you’re interested please keep an eye out for that, but in all likelihood these online resources will be far more useful to people.

This dictionary contains only those words that differ from standard Indonesian, and represents a collation, translation, and standardisation of five major sources: Takaria & Pieter’s Kamus Bahasa Melayu Ambon-Indonesia (1998), van Minde’s Malayu Ambong: Phonology, Morphology, Syntax (1997), the ‘Ambon Maleis’ word list reproduced in Stokhof’s Holle Lists: Vocabularies in Languages of Indonesia Vol. 3/3 (1987), Devin’s online Bahasa Ambon - English Dictionary hosted by Universitas Pattimura since 2011, and the Bahasa Ambon Hari-Hari series of blog posts written by Pattiasina in 2011.

Additionally, an updated version of the Takaria & Pieter dictionary was produced in December 2022 by the Kantor Bahasa Provinsi Maluku (part of the Kementerian Pendidikan, Kebudayaan, Riset, dan Teknologi), so in places where there are new, updated definitions these have been used. Interestingly this document seems to reproduce quite a few of Pattiasina’s definitions directly. Finally, the KutiKata series of articles, written by Elifas Tomix Maspaitella in 2021, has provided some additional vocabulary along with important cultural context and example sentences.

Stress tends to be noticeably on the penultimate syllable, which plays a significant part in producing the distinctive Ambon accent. Many words are derived from Indonesian by applying the following substitutions:

• Initial -e, -er syllables in grammatical prefixes become -a

  • berdiri → badiri, terbakar → tabakar

• Final -n, -m modifiers become -ng

  • teman → tamang, asam → asang

• Final -k, -h modifiers are dropped

  • anak → ana, bersih → barsi

• Final -u syllable becomes -o

  • arus → aros, mabuk → mabo

• Initial -e, -er syllables more generally become -a

  • mesin → masing, lentera → lanterna