Galoli

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Galoli (also known as Galole) is an ethnic group in East Timor with a population of about 50,000, primarily along the northern coast of the district of Manatuto. To the west lies the Mambai ethnic group. There is an old colony on the southern coast of Wetar island, the Talo, who speak a mutually intelligible language.

Their language is also known as Galoli, and is considered a Timor language, a subgroup of the Central Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages. It is one of the national languages designated by the constitution of East Timor. Because the area was used as a trading center for different cultures, there are a large number of foreign loan words in the vocabulary, principally from Moluccan and Malay languages. Although it is not spoken by as many people as other national languages, it was adopted by the Roman Catholic Church in the district of Manatuto and thus has become fixed in grammars and dictionaries.