Sumba languages

Not to be confused with Sumbawa language.
Sumba
Geographic
distribution:
Indonesia
Linguistic classification:

Austronesian

Subdivisions:
  • Savu
  • Sumba Island
Glottolog: sumb1242[1]

The Sumba languages are a group of clearly related Central Malayo-Polynesian languages.

The most widely spoken Sumba language is Kambera, with a quarter million speakers on the eastern half of Sumba Island.

The Hawu language of Savu Island is suspected of having a non-Austronesian substratum, but perhaps not to a greater extent that other languages of central and eastern Flores, such as Sika, or indeed of Central Malayo-Polynesian in general.

Classification

The Sumba languages are all closely related. Blust (2009)[2] found full support for linking Sumba with Hawu, the most divergent language.

References

  1. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Sumba–Hawu". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  2. Robert Blust, 2009. "Is there a Bima–Sumba subgroup?" In Oceanic Linguistics


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