Northwest Sumatran languages

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Northwest Sumatran
North Sumatran
Northwest Sumatra – Barrier Islands
Geographic
distribution
Sumatra
Linguistic classification Austronesian
Glottolog nort2829 [1]

The Northwest Sumatran languages are a group of languages spoken by the Batak and related peoples in the interior of North Sumatra and by the Nias, Mentawai people, and others on the Barrier islands (Simeulue, Nias, and Mentawai Islands Regency) off the western coast of Sumatra.

Batak ethnic groups of North Sumatra, Indonesia

Batak is a collective term used to identify a number of closely related Austronesian ethnic groups predominantly found in North Sumatra, Indonesia who speak Batak languages. The term is used to include the Karo, Pakpak, Simalungun, Toba, Angkola, and Mandailing which are related groups with distinct languages and customs (adat).

North Sumatra Province in Indonesia

North Sumatra is a province of Indonesia. It is located in the northwest of the island of Sumatra, and its capital is Medan. North Sumatra is the fourth most populous province in Indonesia after West Java, East Java and Central Java and the most populous Indonesian province outside Java, with over 13.5 million inhabitants in 2014.

Mentawai people ethnic group

Mentawai people are the native people of the Mentawai Islands, in Siberut, about 100 miles from West Sumatra province, Indonesia. They live a semi-nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle in the coastal and rainforest environments of the islands. The Mentawai population is estimated to be about 64,000. The Mentawai tribe is documented to have migrated from Nias - a northern island - to the Mentawai islands, living in an isolated life for centuries until been discovered in 1621 by the Dutch. The Mentawai language belongs to the Austronesian language family. They follow their own belief called Sabulungan. It is an animism belief where all things have a spirit and a soul. When the spirits are not treated well or forgotten, they might bring bad luck like illnesses and haunt those who forgot them. Mentawai also have very strong belief towards objects they think are holy. The people are characterized by their heavy spirituality, body art and their tendency to sharpen their teeth, a practice they feel makes one beautiful. Mentawai tend to live in unison and peace with the nature around them because they believe that all things in nature have some kind of spiritual essence.

Contents

Classification

The languages of the Northwest Sumatran subgroup are:

Gayo is an Austronesian language spoken by some 100,000 people (2000) in the mountainous region of Aceh around Central Aceh, Bener Meriah and Gayo Lues regencies. It is classified as belonging to the Western Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian languages, but is not closely related to other languages. Ethnologue lists Deret, Lues, Lut, and Serbejadi-Lukup as dialects.

Batak languages language

The Batak languages are spoken by the Batak people of North Sumatra, Indonesia. Thousands of years of adoption of Tamil and Sanskritization led to numerous Indo Aryan loanwords in the Batak languages. Historically they were written using Batak script but the Latin script is now used for most writing. There are considered to be two main Batak language groups, Northern Batak and Southern Batak. Simalungun has been considered an intermediary, but more recent studies suggest that it is a part of the Southern Batak group. Within Northern Batak, a study noted 76% cognate words between Karo and Batak, 81% with Pakpak, 80% with Simalungun, and 30% with Malay (Indonesian). Karo and Toba Batak are mutually unintelligible.

The Simeulue language is spoken by the Devayan people of Simeulue off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia.

This subgroup was first proposed by Lafeber (1922), who called it "Batak-Nias". [2] Nothofer (1986) presented lexical and phonological evidence in support of this subgroup, calling it "Barrier Islands-Batak". [3]

The position of the highly divergent Enggano language is controversial. Both Lafeber (1922) and Nothofer (1986) include Enggano as a probable daughter language. [2] [3] This is rejected by Edwards (2015) who considers Enggano a primary branch of the Malayo-Polynesian languages. Recent research by Smith (2017) however supports the inclusion of Enggano within Northwest Sumatran. [4] [5]

Enggano language language in Indonesia

The Enggano language, or Engganese, is a language of debated linguistic affiliation spoken on Enggano Island off the southwestern coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. It has variously been classified as either an Austronesian language or a language isolate. Roger Blench (2014) considers Enggano to be a language isolate with Austronesian loanwords, while Owen Edwards (2015) classifies Enggano as an Austronesian language with a non-Austronesian substratum. Either way, the general scholarly consensus is that Enggano is an aberrant language that has both Austronesian and non-Austronesian origins.

Malayo-Polynesian languages 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 people of the island nations of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean, with a smaller number in continental Asia, going well into the Malay peninsula. Cambodia and Vietnam serve as the northwest geographic outlier. On the northernmost geographical outlier does not pass beyond the north of Pattani, which is located in southern Thailand. Malagasy is spoken in the island of Madagascar located off the eastern coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean. Part of the language family shows a strong influence of Sanskrit and particularly Arabic as the Western part of the region has been a stronghold of Hinduism, Buddhism and, since the 10th century, Islam.

The Nasal language was "re-discovered" in 2008 in Kaur Regency, Bengkulu, Sumatra. Its classification is uncertain; Smith (2017) proposes a link to Northwest Sumatran. [5]

Nasal is an Austronesian language of southwestern Sumatra. Anderbeck & Aprilani (2013) consider Nasal to be an isolate within the Malayo-Polynesian branch.

Bengkulu Province in Indonesia

Bengkulu is a province of Indonesia, located in the southwest coast of Sumatra. It was formed on 18 November 1968 by separating out the former Bengkulu Residency area from the province of South Sumatra under Law No. 9 of 1967 and was finalised by Government Regulation No. 20 of 1968. Spread over 19,813 km2, it is bordered by the provinces of West Sumatra to the north, Jambi to the northeast, Lampung to the southeast, South Sumatra to the east, and the Indian Ocean to the northwest, south, southwest, and west.

Sumatra island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands

Sumatra is a large island in western Indonesia that is part of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island that is located entirely in Indonesia and the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2.

Lexicon

Edwards (2015: 78) [4] provides the following table comparing body part vocabulary items across various languages of the Barrier Islands. Edwards (2015: 89) considers the aberrant Enggano language as not part of the Barrier Islands-Batak languages.

Gloss PMP Enggano Mentawai Nias Sikule Simeulue
head*qulue-(ʔ)uduuteʔhəɡətuhuulu
hair, head*buheke-pududuialaibububuʔ
face*daqihe-bakamatabavamukobobaŋon
eye*matae-bakamatahərəmatamata
nose*ijuŋẽ-pãnũasakixunixuixuŋ
mouth*baqbaqe-kaʔaŋaŋabavabafaba(ʔ)ba
lips*biRbiRe-ukudipobibobevebefebefil
tongue*dilaqe-dio†lila, ʤalalelal/neladila
tooth*nipene-kaʔaʧonifɨifɨehen
ear*taliŋae-kadihataliŋataliŋaɡuɡuyu(k)oeuʔ
neck*liqeRẽ-ũʔũlolokatbaɡiʔoɡuleŋɡəl
hand*kamay/*limae-ʔapokabeibələxa,taŋataŋakaoʔ,siʔu
fingernail*kanuhkuhẽ-kanũʔũnũsuletsiʔatenatenab˺
breast*titi(q)/*susue-kokotottotsusutotoʔtotuʔ
belly*tiane-kitaibaɣataluamatanbesil
leg*qaqaye-aedereaheaehaɨ
knee*tuhudẽ-pũʔũ u-aebókolotuhibohunboxul
hair, body*bulue-pududuibulubububuʔ
skin*kulite-ʔudikulitulibebibebiʔ
meat/flesh*hesie-hedaakkelaknaɡoleö(h)iisi
fat/grease*miñak/*himaRẽ-mĩnãʔã‡lainaktavətafɨtafɨ
bone*tuqelaŋe-ʔaatolattəlatɨ/ölasod˺
heart*pusuqe-báhau, ẽ-kẽmãteinuŋtədəɨlaxa, ohoate
blood*daRaqe-kiakiloɣaudododala
liver*qatayẽ-nĩũnĩũateiatebala
urine*iheqẽ-ĩkõkiaxiɨk/xiɨ
excrement*taqie-kaitanaitaitaitai

Related Research Articles

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References

  1. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Northwest Sumatra–Barrier Islands". Glottolog 3.0 . Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  2. 1 2 Lafeber, Abraham (1922). Vergelijkende klankleer van het Niasisch. s'-Gravenhage: Hadi Poestaka.
  3. 1 2 Nothofer, Bernd (1986). "The Barrier Island Languages in the Austronesian Language Family". In Geraghty, P., Carrington, L. and Wurm, S.A. (eds.) Focal II: Papers From the Fourth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics, pp. 87–109. Pacific Linguistics, Series C, No. 94, Canberra, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University.
  4. 1 2 Edwards, Owen (2015). "The Position of Enggano within Austronesian". Oceanic Linguistics 54(1): 54-109
  5. 1 2 Smith, Alexander D. (2017). "The Western Malayo-Polynesian Problem". Oceanic Linguistics 56(2): 435-490