Northwest Sumatra–Barrier Islands languages
| Northwest Sumatran | |
|---|---|
| North Sumatran Northwest Sumatra – Barrier Islands | |
| Geographic distribution | Sumatra |
| Linguistic classification | Austronesian
|
| Glottolog | nort2829 |
The Northwest Sumatran languages are a group of languages spoken by the Batak and related peoples in the interior of North Sumatra and by the Nias, Mentawai people, and others on the Barrier islands (Simeulue, Nias, and Mentawai Islands Regency) off the western coast of Sumatra.
Classification
The languages of the North Sumatran subgroup are:
The position of the highly divergent Enggano language is controversial. In the first proposal for the subgroup, Enggano is included as a probable daughter language. This is rejected by Owen (2015) who considers Enggano a primary branch of the Malayo-Polynesian languages. Recent research by Smith (2017) however supports the inclusion of Enggano within Northwest Sumatran.[1][2]
The Nasal language was "re-discovered" in 2008 in Kaur Regency, Bengkulu, Sumatra. Its classification is uncertain; Smith (2017) proposes a link to Northwest Sumatran.[2]
References
- 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.
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