Arandai

Arandai is a Papuan dialect cluster of western New Guinea, spoken along the Berau Gulf and Bintuni Bay. It groups three closely related varieties, Kemberano, Dombano and Kokoda, which form either a small subfamily or a dialect continuum. Within the Trans–New Guinea family, Arandai belongs to the South Bird's Head languages.

Its speakers live on swampy shorelines long tied into the Tidore Sultanate's network of tribute and raiding, legendarily expanded by the Papuan leader Gurabesi. The Spanish expedition of Luís Vaz de Torres sailed past these coasts in 1606, the first Europeans to sight them.

In 1828 the Dutch erected Fort Du Bus on nearby Triton Bay to anchor their protectorate over Tidore's Papuan claims; abandoned in 1835, it left the Arandai shore under loose, indirect Tidore rule for the rest of the period.