The Malayo-Sumbawan languages are a proposed subgroup of the

Austronesian languages The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken ...

that unites the Malayic and Chamic languages with the languages of

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

and the western

Lesser Sunda Islands The Lesser Sunda Islands (, , ), now known as Nusa Tenggara Islands (, or "Southeast Islands"), are an archipelago in the Indonesian archipelago. Most of the Lesser Sunda Islands are located within the Wallacea region, except for the Bali pro ...

(western

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

), except for Javanese (Adelaar 2005). Adelaar, Alexander. 2005.
Malayo-Sumbawan
'. Oceanic Linguistics, Vol. 44, No. 2 (Dec., 2005), pp. 357–388. If valid, it would be the largest demonstrated family of Malayo-Polynesian outside Oceanic. The Malayo-Sumbawan subgroup is however not universally accepted, and is rejected e.g. by Blust (2010) and Smith (2017), who supported the Greater North Borneo and Western Indonesian hypotheses. In a 2019 paper published in '' Oceanic Linguistics'', Adelaar accepted both of these groupings, in addition to Smith's (2018) redefinition of Barito languages as forming a linkage.

Classification

According to Adelaar (2005), the composition of the family is as follows: *Malayo-Sumbawan ** Sundanese (1 or 2 languages of western

; incl. Baduy) ** Madurese (2 languages of eastern Java and Madura Island, including Kangean) **Malayo-Chamic–BSS *** Chamic (a dozen languages, including Acehnese in

Aceh Aceh ( , ; , Jawi script, Jawoë: ; Van Ophuijsen Spelling System, Old Spelling: ''Atjeh'') is the westernmost Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia. It is located on the northern end of Sumatra island, with Banda Aceh being its capit ...

of Indonesia, and Cham in South

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

Cambodia Cambodia, officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. It is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east, and has a coastline ...

and Hainan island of China) *** Malayic (a dozen languages dispersed from either western Borneo or central Sumatra, including Malay/ Indonesian, Minangkabau in central Sumatra, and Iban of western

Borneo Borneo () is the List of islands by area, third-largest island in the world, with an area of , and population of 23,053,723 (2020 national censuses). Situated at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, it is one of the Greater Sunda ...

) *** Bali–Sasak–Sumbawa (3 languages) Unlike in earlier classifications of the languages of the Greater Sunda islands (e.g. Isidore Dyen's "Sundic" subgroup in his 1965 lexicostatistical classification of the Austronesian languages, which included all languages later included in Adaelaar's proposal plus the Southwest Barito languages, Javanese, Gayo and Lampung), Javanese is specifically excluded; the connections between Javanese and Bali–Sasak are mainly restricted to the 'high' register, and disappear when the 'low' register is taken as representative of the languages. This is similar to the case of English, where more 'refined' vocabulary suggests a connection with French, but basic language demonstrates its closer relationship to

Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania, and Southern Africa. The most widely spoke ...

such as German and Dutch. Moken is also excluded. Sundanese appears to share sound changes specifically with Lampung, but Lampung does not fit into Adelaar's Malayo-Sumbawan.Karl Andebeck, 2006
'An initial reconstruction of Proto-Lampungic'
/ref>

References

*Gil, David (2012)
"The Mekong-Mamberamo Linguistic Area"

External links

NUSA – Linguistic Studies of Indonesian and Other Languages in Indonesia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Malayo-Sumbawan languages Agglutinative languages Malayo-Polynesian languages