The Northwest Sumatra–Barrier Islands languages (also Barrier Islands–Batak languages) are a group of

Malayo-Polynesian languages 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 Southeas ...

spoken by the Batak and related peoples in the interior of North Sumatra and by the Nias,

Mentawai people Mentawai (also known as Mentawei and Mentawi) people are the native people of the Mentawai Islands (principally Siberut, Sipura, North Pagai and South Pagai) about 100 miles from West Sumatra province, Indonesia. They live a semi-nomadic hunt ...

, and others on the Barrier islands (

Simeulue Simeulue is an island of Indonesia, off the west coast of Sumatra. It covers an area of 1754 square kilometres (677 square miles), including minor offshore islands. It had a population of 80,674 at the 2010 census and 92,865 at the 2020 census ...

Nias Nias ( id, Pulau Nias, Nias language: ''Tanö Niha'') (sometimes called Little Sumatra in English) is an island located off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. Nias is also the name of the archipelago () of which the island is the centre, ...

, and

Mentawai Islands Regency The Mentawai Islands Regency are a chain of about seventy islands and islets approximately off the western coast of Sumatra in Indonesia. They cover 6,033.76 km2 and had a population of 76,173 at the 2010 Census and 87,623 at the 2020 Census. Sib ...

) off the western coast of Sumatra.

Classification

The languages of the Northwest Sumatra–Barrier Islands subgroup are: * Gayo *

Batak languages __FORCETOC__ The Batak languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages spoken by the Batak people in the Indonesian province of North Sumatra and surrounding areas. Internal classification The Batak languages can be divided into two ...

– Sikule * Mentawai * Enggano (?) This subgroup was first proposed by Lafeber (1922), who called it "Batak-Nias". Nothofer (1986) presented lexical and phonological evidence in support of this subgroup, calling it "Barrier Islands–Batak". 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. The position of the highly divergent

Enggano language The Enggano language, or Engganese, is an Austronesian language spoken on Enggano Island off the southwestern coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. Enggano is notable among the Austronesian languages of western Insular Southeast Asia because of many unu ...

is controversial. Both Lafeber (1922) and Nothofer (1986) include Enggano as a probable daughter language. This is rejected by Edwards (2015) who considers Enggano a primary branch of the

.Edwards, Owen (2015). "The Position of Enggano within Austronesian". ''Oceanic Linguistics 54''(1): 54-109 Recent research by Smith (2017) however supports the inclusion of Enggano within his tentative "Sumatran" subgroup, which is an extended version of Northwest Sumatra–Barrier Islands that further includes the Nasal language spoken in

Bengkulu Bengkulu is a province of Indonesia. It is located on the southwest coast of Sumatra. It was formed on 18 November 1968 by separating out the former Bencoolen Residency area from the province of South Sumatra under Law No. 9 of 1967 and was fi ...

in southwestern Sumatra.Smith, Alexander D. (2017). "The Western Malayo-Polynesian Problem". ''Oceanic Linguistics 56''(2): 435-490

Lexicon

Edwards (2015: 78) provides the following table comparing body part vocabulary items across various languages of the

Barrier Islands Barrier islands are coastal landforms and a type of dune system that are exceptionally flat or lumpy areas of sand that form by wave and tidal action parallel to the mainland coast. They usually occur in chains, consisting of anything from a f ...

. Edwards (2015: 89) considers the aberrant

as not part of the Barrier Islands-Batak languages.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Northwest Sumatra-Barrier Islands languages Sumatran languages North Sumatra