The Sumba–Flores languages, which correspond to the traditional "Bima–Sumba" subgroup minus Bima, are a proposed group of Austronesian languages (geographically Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages) spoken on and around the islands of Sumba and western–central Flores in the Lesser Sundas, Indonesia. The main languages are Manggarai, which has half a million speakers on the western third of Flores, and Kambera, with a quarter million speakers on the eastern half of Sumba Island.
| Sumba–Flores | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution | Indonesia (Lesser Sunda Islands) |
| Linguistic classification | Austronesian
|
| Subdivisions |
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| Language codes | |
| Glottolog | flor1240 |
The Hawu language of Savu Island is suspected of having a non-Austronesian substratum, but perhaps not to any greater extent than the languages of central and eastern Flores, such as Sika, or indeed of Central Malayo-Polynesian languages in general.
Classification
editBlust (2008)[1] finds moderate support for linking the languages of western and central Flores with Sumba–Hawu.
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Blust, Robert (2008). "Is There a Bima-Sumba Subgroup?". Oceanic Linguistics. 47 (1): 45–113. doi:10.1353/ol.0.0006. JSTOR 20172340.
Further reading
edit- Gasser, Emily. 2014. Subgrouping in Nusa Tenggara: The case of Bima-Sumba. In Jeffrey Connor-Linton and Luke Wander Amoroso (eds.), Measured Language: Quantitative Studies of Acquisition, Assessment, and Variation, 63-78. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.