East Barito languages
Group of Austronesian languages / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The East Barito languages are a group of a dozen Dayak (Austronesian) languages of Borneo, Indonesia, and most notably Malagasy, the national language of Madagascar. They are named after the Barito River located in South Kalimantan, Indonesia.
East Barito | |
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Geographic distribution | Indonesia (south Borneo) Madagascar |
Linguistic classification | Austronesian
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Glottolog | east2713 |
The languages are,
- Central–South
- Dusun Deyah
- South: Dusun Malang, Dusun Witu, Ma'anyan, Paku
- Malagasy (incl. Bushi on Mayotte)
- North: Lawangan, Tawoyan
Several of the languages are named 'Dusun' because they are spoken by the Dusun people; they are not to be confused with the Dusunic languages, which are also spoken by the Dusun but belong to a different branch of Malayo-Polynesian.
The most described East Barito language is Malagasy, which is also the best known language of the Barito group.[1] South East Borneo is considered to be the original homeland of Malagasy.[2][3] Malagasy is thought to have been brought to the East Africa region by Austronesian-speaking migrants between the 7th and 13th centuries.[4][5] Some linguistic evidence suggests that a distinct Malagasy language variety had already emerged in Borneo before the early Malagasy migrants reached Madagascar.[6][7]