See also
- Languages of Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo)
- Languages of Indonesia
| Greater North Borneo | |
|---|---|
| (proposed) | |
| Geographic distribution | Historically: most of Borneo and Sumatra, western Java and Mainland Southeast Asia Nowadays: Throughout Maritime Southeast Asia |
| Linguistic classification | Austronesian
|
| Subdivisions |
|
| Language codes | |
| Glottolog | nort3253 (partial match) |
The Greater North Borneo languages are a proposed subgroup of the Austronesian language family. The subgroup historically covers languages that are spoken throughout much of Borneo (excluding the southeastern area where the Greater Barito languages are spoken) and Sumatra, as well as parts of Java, and Mainland Southeast Asia. The Greater North Borneo hypothesis was first proposed by Robert Blust (2010) and further elaborated by Alexander Smith (2017a, 2017b). [1] [2] [3] The evidence presented for this proposal are solely lexical. [4] Despite its name, this branch has been now widespread within the Maritime Southeast Asia region.
The proposed subgroup covers some of the major languages in Southeast Asia, including Malay/Indonesian and related Malayic languages such as Minangkabau, Banjar and Iban; as well as Sundanese and Acehnese. In Borneo itself, the largest non-Malayic GNB language in terms of the number of speakers is Central Dusun, mainly spoken in Sabah. [5]
Since Greater North Borneo also includes the Malayic, Chamic, and Sundanese languages, it is incompatible with Alexander Adelaar's Malayo-Sumbawan hypothesis. [6] [7]
Blust connects the GNB expansion with the migration of Austronesian speakers into Maritime Southeast Asia. According to Blust, when Austronesian speakers came from the north through the Philippines, they split into three groups: one that went into Borneo, one that went into Sulawesi, and one that went into the Moluccas. [8] After landing in Borneo, the first group was further split into two: one that moved along the northwestern coast facing the South China Sea, and another one that moved along the eastern coast. The language variety spoken by the northwestern group eventually developed into the Greater North Borneo languages. [9]
Robert Blust proposed a set of lexical innovations that defined Greater North Borneo. One of these innovations is *tuzuq replacing Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *pitu for 'seven'. [1] The following subgroups are included:
While Blust assumed that all languages of Borneo other than those in Greater Barito subgroup with GNB, [1] he does not attempt to explicitly classify several languages, including those with insufficient available data. [10] [11]
Smith recognizes an independent Central Sarawak branch within Greater North Borneo, combining the Melanau, Kajang and Punan–Müller-Schwaner languages. [12] Additionally, he also excludes Moklenic from GNB and places it all the way up as one of the primary branches of Malayo-Polynesian. [3]
Proto-Kayanic, Proto-Punan, Proto-Müller-Schwaner, Proto-Land Dayak, and Proto-Kenyah have also been reconstructed in Smith (2017a). [13]
According to Roger Blench (2010), [14] Austroasiatic languages were once spoken in Borneo. Blench cites Austroasiatic-origin vocabulary words in modern-day Bornean branches such as Land Dayak (Bidayuh, Dayak Bakatiq, etc.), Dusunic (Central Dusun, Bisaya, etc.), Kayan, and Kenyah, noting especially resemblances with the Aslian languages of peninsular Malaysia. As further evidence for his proposal, Blench also cites ethnographic evidence such as musical instruments in Borneo shared in common with Austroasiatic-speaking groups in mainland Southeast Asia.
Blench (2010) claims that lexical forms shared among Bornean and Austroasiatic languages include 'rain', 'to die', 'back (of body)', 'flying lemur', 'monkey', 'barking deer', 'lizard', and 'taro'.
Kaufman (2018) presents further evidence of words in various Austronesian languages of Borneo that are of likely Austroasiatic origin. [15]
The Austroasiatic languages are a large language family spoken throughout Mainland Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia. These languages are natively spoken by the majority of the population in Vietnam and Cambodia, and by minority populations scattered throughout parts of Thailand, Laos, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and southern China. Approximately 117 million people speak an Austroasiatic language, of which more than two-thirds are Vietnamese speakers. Of the Austroasiatic languages, only Vietnamese, Khmer, and Mon have lengthy, established presences in the historical record. Only two are presently considered to be the national languages of sovereign states: Vietnamese in Vietnam, and Khmer in Cambodia. The Mon language is a recognized indigenous language in Myanmar and Thailand, while the Wa language is a "recognized national language" in the de facto autonomous Wa State within Myanmar. Santali is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India. The remainder of the family's languages are spoken by minority groups and have no official status.
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan. They are spoken by about 328 million people. This makes it the fifth-largest language family by number of speakers. Major Austronesian languages include Malay, Javanese, Sundanese, Tagalog, Malagasy and Cebuano. According to some estimates, the family contains 1,257 languages, which is the second most of any language family.
The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. The Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken by the Austronesian peoples outside of Taiwan, in the island nations of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean, with a smaller number in continental Asia in the areas near the Malay Peninsula, with Cambodia, Vietnam and the Chinese island Hainan as the northwest geographic outlier. Malagasy, spoken on the island of Madagascar off the eastern coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean, is the furthest western outlier.
The Philippine languages or Philippinic are a proposed group by R. David Paul Zorc (1986) and Robert Blust that include all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi, Indonesia—except Sama–Bajaw and the Molbog language—and form a subfamily of Austronesian languages. Although the Philippines is near the center of Austronesian expansion from Taiwan, there is relatively little linguistic diversity among the approximately 150 Philippine languages, suggesting that earlier diversity has been erased by the spread of the ancestor of the modern Philippine languages.
The Chamic languages, also known as Aceh–Chamic and Acehnese–Chamic, are a group of ten languages spoken in Aceh and in parts of Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and Hainan, China. The Chamic languages are a subgroup of Malayo-Polynesian languages in the Austronesian family. The ancestor of this subfamily, proto-Chamic, is associated with the Sa Huỳnh culture, its speakers arriving in what is now Vietnam from Formosa.
The Malayic languages are a branch of the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup of the Austronesian language family. The two most prominent members of this branch are Indonesian and Malay. Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia and has evolved as a standardized form of Malay with distinct influences from local languages and historical factors. Malay, in its various forms, is recognized as a national language in Brunei, Malaysia, and Singapore. The Malayic branch also includes local languages spoken by ethnic Malays, further several languages spoken by various other ethnic groups of Sumatra, Indonesia and Borneo even as far as Urak Lawoi in the southwestern coast of Thailand.
Lampung or Lampungic is an Austronesian language or dialect cluster with around 1.5 million native speakers, who primarily belong to the Lampung ethnic group of southern Sumatra, Indonesia. It is divided into two or three varieties: Lampung Api, Lampung Nyo, and Komering. The latter is sometimes included in Lampung Api, sometimes treated as an entirely separate language. Komering people see themselves as ethnically separate from, but related to, Lampung people.
The East Barito languages are a group of a dozen Dayak (Austronesian) languages of Borneo, Indonesia, and most notably Malagasy, the national language of Madagascar. They are named after the Barito River located in South Kalimantan, Indonesia.
The Kayanic or Kayan–Murik languages are a group of Austronesian languages spoken in Borneo by the Kayan, Morek Baram, Bahau, and related peoples.
The Melanau–Kajang languages or Central Sarawak languages are a group of languages spoken in Kalimantan, Indonesia and Sarawak, Malaysia by the Kenyah, Melanau and related peoples.
The Barito languages are around twenty Austronesian languages of Indonesia (Borneo), plus Malagasy, the national language of Madagascar, and the Sama–Bajaw languages around the Sulu Archipelago. They are named after the Barito River located in South Kalimantan, Indonesia.
The Malayo-Sumbawan languages are a proposed subgroup of the Austronesian languages that unites the Malayic and Chamic languages with the languages of Java and the western Lesser Sunda Islands, except for Javanese. If valid, it would be the largest demonstrated family of Malayo-Polynesian outside Oceanic. The Malayo-Sumbawan subgroup is however not universally accepted, and is rejected e.g. by Blust (2010) and Smith (2017), who supported the Greater North Borneo and Western Indonesian hypotheses. In a 2019 paper published in Oceanic Linguistics, Adelaar accepted both of these groupings, in addition to Smith's (2018) redefinition of Barito languages as forming a linkage.
The Bali–Sasak–Sumbawa languages are a group of closely related languages spoken in Indonesia in the western Lesser Sunda Islands. The three languages are Balinese on Bali, Sasak on Lombok, and Sumbawa on western Sumbawa.
The Sabahan languages are a group of Austronesian languages centered on the Bornean province of Sabah.
The South Sulawesi languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian language family. They are primarily spoken in the Indonesian provinces of South Sulawesi and West Sulawesi, with a small outlying pocket in West Kalimantan.
Maanyan or Maʼanyan is an Austronesian language belonging to the East Barito languages. It is spoken by about 150,000 Ma'anyan people living in the province of Central Kalimantan and South Kalimantan, Indonesia. It is most closely related to the Malagasy language spoken in Madagascar, although these languages are not mutually intelligible due to the geographical separation.
There have been various classification schemes for Southeast Asian languages.
The Tamanic languages are a small group of languages of Kapuas Hulu Regency, West Kalimantan:
The East Asian languages are a language family proposed by Stanley Starosta in 2001. The proposal has since been adopted by George van Driem and others.
The Moklenic or Moken–Moklen languages consist of a pair of two closely related but distinct languages, namely Moken and Moklen. Larish (1999) establishes the two languages as forming two distinct subgroups of a larger Moken–Moklen branch. Larish (2005) suggests Moklenic as an alternative name for Moken–Moklen, the latter term which was originally used by Larish (1999).
| Political divisions | |
|---|---|
| Eco-regions | |
| Environment | |
| History | |
| Ethnic groups | |
| Languages | |
