The Sumba–Flores languages, which correspond to the traditional "Bima–Sumba" subgroup minus
Bima
Bima (Indonesia: ''Kota Bima'') is a city on the eastern coast of the island of Sumbawa in central Indonesia's province West Nusa Tenggara. It is the largest city on the island of Sumbawa, with a population of 142,443 at the 2010 census and 15 ...
, are a proposed group of
Austronesian languages (geographically
Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages
The Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian (CEMP) languages form a proposed branch of the Malayo-Polynesian languages consisting of over 700 languages (Blust 1993).
Distribution
The Central Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken in the Lesser Sun ...
) spoken on and around the islands of
Sumba
Sumba ( id, Pulau Sumba) is an island in eastern Indonesia. It is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands and is in the province of East Nusa Tenggara. Sumba has an area of , and the population was 779,049 at the 2020 Census; the official estimate as a ...
and western–central
Flores in the
Lesser Sundas,
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 ...
. 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.
The
Hawu language of
Savu Island is suspected of having a non-Austronesian
substratum
In linguistics, a stratum (Latin for "layer") or strate is a language that influences or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum or substrate is a language that has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum or su ...
, 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
Blust (2008)
finds moderate support for linking the languages of western and central Flores with Sumba–Hawu.
*Sumba–Flores
**
Sumba–Hawu
***
Hawu–Dhao
***
Sumba languages (see)
**Western Flores
***Manggarai–Rembong:
Komodo,
Manggarai,
Riung,
Rembong,
Rajong,
Kepo',
Wae Rana
***Central Flores–Palu'e
****
Palu'e
****
Central Flores
*****Ende–Lio: a dialect cluster of
Ende,
Lio,
Nage
The Nage are an indigenous people living on the eastern Indonesian island of Flores and Timor. They descended from the indigenous population of Flores They are largely assimilated by the neighboring people. They speak Nage, one of the major l ...
,
Ke'o
*****Ngada:
Ngad'a,
Rongga,
So'a (dialect cluster)
See also
*
Sumba languages
*
Central Flores languages
The Central Flores languages (also called Ngadha–Lio) are a subgroup of the Austronesian language family. They are spoken in the central part of Flores, one of the Lesser Sunda Islands in the eastern half of Indonesia. The speech area of the C ...
References
Further reading
*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.
External links
LexiRumah(part of th
Lesser Sunda linguistic databasesReconstructing the past through languages of the present: the Lesser Sunda Islands
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sumba-Flores languages
Languages of Indonesia
Sumba languages
Flores Island (Indonesia)