Ambelau is an Austronesian language; as of 1989, it was spoken by about 5,700 Ambelau people

Ambelau people

The Ambelau are an ethnic group who form the majority of the population of the Indonesian island of Ambelau. They also live on nearby island Buru and other islands. By ethnography, Ambelau are close to most indigenous peoples of Buru island...

, of whom more than 5,000 lived on the Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

n island Ambelau

Ambelau

Ambelau or Ambalau is a volcanic island in the Banda Sea within Maluku Islands of Indonesia. The island forms an administrative unit which belongs to the South Buru Regency of Maluku province , Indonesia. The administrative center is Wailua, a settlement located at the south of the island...

  and most others in the village Wae Tawa of the nearby island Buru

Buru

Buru is the third largest island within Maluku Islands of Malay Archipelago. It lies between the Banda Sea to the south and Seram Sea to the north, west of Ambon and Seram islands. The island belongs to Maluku province of Indonesia and includes the Buru and South Buru regencies...

 .

The language belongs to the Central Maluku

Central Maluku languages

The Central Maluku languages are a putative group of fifty Austronesian languages spoken principally on the Seram, Buru, Ambon, Kei, Aru, and the Sula Islands...

 branch of Malayo-Polynesian languages

Malayo-Polynesian languages

The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. These are widely dispersed throughout the island nations of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean, with a smaller number in continental Asia...

; there is no consensus in literature on its attribution to a distinct sub-branch, e.g. Sula–Buru languages. Although Ambelau island is only 20 km away from the much larger Buru island (population 135,000), the Ambelau language is rather different from all languages and dialects of Buru. Its closest analogue (lexical similarity 44%) is the southern dialect of Buru language, Masarete. The preservation of the language was also unaffected by the fact that Ambelau people compose only half of the Ambelau island population, and the communication with the Bugis

Bugis

The Bugis are the most numerous of the three major linguistic and ethnic groups of South Sulawesi, the southwestern province of Sulawesi, Indonesia's third largest island. Although many Bugis live in the large port cities of Makassar and Parepare, the majority are farmers who grow wet rice on the...

 and Javanese people composing the other half usually occurs in the official language of the country, Indonesian. Ambelau language has no dialects; so the Ambelau community on Buru island speaks identical language to that used on Ambelau. The language has no writing system.

The most detailed study of Ambelau language was conducted in the 1980s by Charles E. Grimes and Barbara Dix Grimes – Australian missionaries and ethnographers, active members of SIL International

SIL International

SIL International is a U.S.-based, worldwide, Christian non-profit organization, whose main purpose is to study, develop and document languages, especially those that are lesser-known, in order to expand linguistic knowledge, promote literacy, translate the Christian Bible into local languages,...

(they should not be confused with Joseph E. Grimes and Barbara F. Grimes, Charles' parents, also known Australian ethnographers).