Alternate Names: Doibel, Kobroor, Kobro’or, Sersifar Tannin
Dialects: Northern Dobel, Southeast Dobel, Straits Dobel. At least 3 dialects. Lexical similarity: 78%–86% with Koba ,.
Genealogy:
Demographics: 5,680 (2011 SIL), increasing. L2 users: Chinese merchants and other outsiders who live in Dobel villages and residents of Lorang use it as L2.
Language Use: Vigorous. Some Chinese merchants who speak Dobo Malay dialect of Ambonese Malay [abs] and older Hokkien [nan] learn Dobel. All domains. All ages. Positive attitudes. Also use Dobo Malay, a dialect of Ambonese Malay [abs]. Nearly all school-age speakers of Dobel are bilingual in Ambonese Malay. Also use Indonesian [ind], Manombai [woo]. Used as L2 by Lorang [lrn], Manombai [woo].
Language Development: Literacy rate in L1: 60%. Bible portions: 1991–2009.
Typology: SVO; prepositions; no adjectives; noun head initial; active verbs and stative verbs; complex reduplication system; 14 consonant phonemes and 5 vowel phonemes; CVC, CV, with CiCiVC, CiCiV patterns occurring only as stressed syllable of a phonological word, when that word is reduplicated; not tonal.
Writing System: Latin
Nation of Origin: Indonesia
Other Comments: Christian, Muslim.