Sumba languages

Sumba
Geographic distribution:	Indonesia
Linguistic classification:	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian (MP) Nuclear MP Central–Eastern MP Sumba–Flores Sumba
Subdivisions:	Savu Sumba Island
Glottolog:	sumb1242[1]

The Sumba languages are a group of clearly related Central Malayo-Polynesian languages.

The most widely spoken Sumba language is 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, but perhaps not to a greater extent that other languages of central and eastern Flores, such as Sika, or indeed of Central Malayo-Polynesian in general.

Classification

The Sumba languages are all closely related. Blust (2009)^[2] found full support for linking Sumba with Hawu, the most divergent language.

• Savu languages (See)
  • Hawu
  • Dhao
• Sumba Island
  • Sumbanese: Kambera (dialect cluster), Mamboru
  • Wanukaka–Ponduk
    • Anakalangu, Wanukaka
    • Ponduk, Baliledu
  • Wewewa–Lamboya
    • Wewewa
    • Lamboya
  • Kodi
    • Kodi, Gaura

References

1. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Sumba–Hawu". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
2. Robert Blust, 2009. "Is there a Bima–Sumba subgroup?" In Oceanic Linguistics