Biak

Biak is a small island located in Cenderawasih Bay near the northern coast of Papua, an Indonesian province, and is just northwest of New Guinea. Biak is the largest island in its small archipelago, and has many atolls, reefs, and corals.

The largest population centre is at Kota Biak (Biak City) on the south coast. The rest of the island is thinly populated with small villages.

Biak is part of the Biak Islands (Kepulauan Biak).

History

Biak was first sighted by Europeans by the Portuguese navigator Jorge de Menezes in 1526. In his voyage from Malacca to Maluku via northern Borneo, Jorge de Menezes landed at Biak Islands, at the entrance of the Gulf, where he was forced to winter; the island is thenceforth called in Portuguese maps Ilha de Dom Jorge or Ilha onde invernou Dom Jorge, to become, finally, Ilha de S. Jorge.

The Spanish navigator Álvaro de Saavedra sighted the island on 24 June 1528, when trying to return from Tidore to New Spain. Another sighting was later reported in 1545 by Spanish navigator Íñigo Ortiz de Retes on board of galleon San Juan when also attempting the return to New Spain

Biak language

Biak (wós Vyak or "Biak language"; wós kovedi or "our language"; Bahasa Indonesia: Bahasa Biak), also known as Biak-Numfor, Noefoor, Mafoor, Mefoor, Nufoor, Mafoorsch, Myfoorsch and Noefoorsch, is an Austronesian language that has been classified as one of 41 languages of the South Halmahera-West New Guinea subgroup of Eastern Malayo-Polynesian Languages. It is spoken in Biak and Numfor and numerous small islands in this archipelago in the province of Papua, Indonesia by about 30,000 people.

Sociolinguistic Situation

There are a number of different dialects of Biak spoken on various different Islands the most well-known being Biak-Numfoor, spoken on the Island of Numfoor, these dialect differences are small and mostly slight regular sound changes. Almost all Biak speakers are also fluent in Malay, but very few have a comprehensive knowledge of formal Indonesian.

Despite the comparatively high number of speakers compared to some other Austronesian languages, Biak is still in danger of extinction. Within the main towns the generation of speakers aged between 20 and 50 have only passive knowledge of the language and rarely use the language actively, instead preferring to use Malay. Younger generations do not even generally have passive knowledge of the language. Biak is only actively used as a spoken language by members of the community over 50 years of age or so and even they regularly code switch into Malay. However, within the villages further from town there were still children who were fluent in Biak. Songs in Biak are also very popular throughout the Islands.

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Flexible and Sly: Indonesian Defence Policy, Russia, and Australian Anxiety

Dissident Voice 16 Apr 2025
... The area in question is Papua, and the relevant airbase, Biak Numfor, home to the Indonesian Air Force’s Aviation Squadron 27 responsible for operating surveillance aircraft of the CN235 variety.
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