Do you know what language is spoken in Indonesia? If you answered Indonesian, you’re not necessarily wrong—that is the national language. But this is a trick question, because there are more than 700 languages spoken across Indonesia. Around 80% of Indonesians speak Indonesian, especially those in urban areas, since it’s needed to talk with people from all over the country. But most Indonesians have a different native language that they use with their family and in their local community.
In the province of Gorontalo, nestled squarely on the Minahasa Peninsula in northern Sulawesi, the regional language is Gorontalo. There are still around 1 million Gorontalo speakers today, with the Gorontalo people comprising the biggest ethnic group on the Minahasa Peninsula, and thanks to the significance of the historical Gorontalo Kingdom, the language retains prestige in contemporary Gorontalo society. Nonetheless, Indonesian is generally used for education, media, and official purposes, which threatens Gorontalo’s status as a thriving language. This also makes it hard to find translation services for Gorontalo, since not many translation companies will work with it. That’s where TranslationServices.com comes in—we’re proud to offer professional Gorontalo translation services.
Why not request a quote for your Gorontalo translation project? You can receive a quote for free.
Gorontalo: a Philippine language in Indonesia
As proud Muslims, the Gorontalo people used to write their language in the Jawi script, a modified version of the Arabic script used widely throughout Indonesia. However, today, they have largely switched to the Latin alphabet, in line with most other indigenous Indonesian languages. Also like its neighboring languages, Gorontalo comes from the Mayalo–Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family—but whereas most other Indonesian languages are Malayic, Gorontalo is on the Philippine subbranch of the family.
Gorontalo’s basic word order is subject-verb-object, just like in English, but verb-subject-object and verb-object-subject are also possible. The language features a politeness distinction in its pronouns, which is extremely common in Southeast Asian languages, and there are separative subject and object forms for the pronouns. The subject forms can be incorporated into verbs, forming a single word. Tense is marked with verbal prefixes, and aspectual particles, such as a perfective particle denoting a completed action, can adjust the nuance of a sentence. Regarding adjectives, Gorontalo adjectives are easy to pick out because they always start with the prefix mo-.
Let us translate to and from Gorontalo according to your individual needs.
Gorontalo is a unique language within Indonesia, and it’s a tricky one for English speakers to get used to. But don’t worry—our Gorontalo translators are bona fide experts who can seamlessly translate between English and Gorontalo, regardless of the challenges. For instance, clients with old documents written in Gorontalo—including traditional literature—can come to us for translation help, even if they’re written in the Jawi script. We’re also here to translate any contemporary content from Gorontalo to English. And on the opposite side of things, our team is also passionate about translating content into Gorontalo, whether that’s content for businesses catering to the local Gorontalo population, educational materials to help instructors teach children in their native language, or entertainment content like books, websites, games, and more that not only encourage more widespread use of Gorontalo but also aid learners in picking up the language.
So, why not get in touch today with the details of your Gorontalo translation project?