Sunda-Sulawesi languages

Infobox Language family
name=Sunda-Sulawesi
region=Southern Thailand, southern Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and Micronesia
familycolor=Austronesian
fam2=Malayo-Polynesian (MP)
fam3=Nuclear MP
child1=17 branches (provisional)


map_caption=The Sunda-Sulawesi languages (red). Not shown: Chamorro. The languages in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Hainan are Chamic languages, and those of coastal Burma and Thailand are Moklen languages. The excluded areas of Malaya are Aslian languages, and those of Borneo and Sulawesi are Borneo-Philippine languages.

The Sunda-Sulawesi languages (or Inner Hesperonesian or Inner Western Malayo-Polynesian languages) are a branch of the Austronesian family posited in Wouk and Ross (2002). They include most of the languages of Sulawesi and the Greater Sunda Islands, as well as a few outliers such as Chamorro and Palauan.

In this proposal the previous clade of Western Malayo-Polynesian (WMP), or Hesperonesian, has been broken up into "inner" (Sunda-Sulawesi) and "outer" (Borneo-Philippines) clades, and Western Malayo-Polynesian is considered merely a geographic term.

Not all the languages of Sulawesi belong to Sunda-Sulawesi. The twenty languages of the northern peninsula of Sulawesi and neighboring islands to the north are not part of the Sunda-Sulawesi branch of Austronesian (Inner Hesperonesian), but rather part of the Borneo-Philippines branch (Outer Hesperonesian).

Classification

There are a number of small, closely related clusters of languages in the Sunda-Sulawesi family whose interrelationship remains uncertain. Grouped by geography, they are:

"(Central and southern Sulawesi)"
*Tomini-Tolitoli languages (8 languages of northern Central Sulawesi province; includes Totoli)
*Saluan-Banggai languages (4 languages of eastern Central Sulawesi)
*Kaili-Pamona languages (8 languages of central Central Sulawesi)
*South Sulawesi (9 languages of South Sulawesi; includes Buginese, Makassarese, and the former isolate Mbaloh)
*Bungku-Tolaki languages (4 languages of South East Sulawesi)
*Wotu-Wolio languages (3 languages)
*Muna-Buton (6 languages offshore from South East Sulawesi, such as Tukang Besi)"(Greater Sunda Islands, listed from west to east)"
*"Gayo language" (north Sumatra)
*Sumatran languages (10 languages of north-central Sumatra; includes Nias, Mentawai, and 5 Batak languages)
*Malayic languages (25 languages dispersed from either western Borneo or central Sumatra, including Malay (Malaysian/Indonesian), Minangkabau in central Sumatra, Acehnese in Aceh, Cham in Vietnam, Moken in Thailand and Burma, and Iban of northern Borneo)
*Lampungic languages (2 languages of Lampung in southern Sumatra)
*"Sundanese" (western Java)
*"Javanese" (central Java)
*"Madurese" (eastern Java and Madura)
*Bali-Sasak languages (3 languages: Balinese on Bali, Sasak on Lombok, and Sumbawa on western Sumbawa)"(Pacific islands)"
*"Palauan" (Palau)
*"Chamorro" (Mariana Islands, including Guam)

References

*Fay Wouk and Malcolm Ross (ed.), "The history and typology of western Austronesian voice systems." Australian National University, 2002.