Banda is an
Austronesian
Austronesian may refer to:
*The Austronesian languages
*The historical Austronesian peoples
The Austronesian peoples, sometimes referred to as Austronesian-speaking peoples, are a large group of peoples in Taiwan, Maritime Southeast Asia, M ...
language of the
Central Maluku subgroup. Along with
Kei, it is one of the two languages of the
Kei Islands in the
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
n province of
Maluku.
Originally, the Banda language was spoken on the
Banda Islands
The Banda Islands ( id, Kepulauan Banda) are a volcanic group of ten small volcanic islands in the Banda Sea, about south of Seram Island and about east of Java, and constitute an administrative district (''kecamatan'') within the Centr ...
until the
Dutch military campaign in 1621, during which almost all indigenous inhabitants were killed, enslaved or exiled. Survivors of the campaign found refuge on the island of
Kei Besar
Kei may refer to:
People
* Kei (given name)
* Kei, Cantonese for Ji(姫)
* Kei, Cantonese for Qi(奇, 祁, 亓)
* Shō Kei (1700–1752), king of the Ryūkyū Kingdom
* Kei (singer) (born 1995), stage name of South Korean singer Kim Ji-yeon
* ...
, where the language is still in active use in the villages ''Banda Elat'' and ''Banda Eli''.
References
Central Maluku languages
Languages of the Maluku Islands
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