Malayo-Sumbawan
Geographic distribution:	Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Vietnam, Bali, West Nusa Tenggara
Genetic classification:	Austronesian  Malayo-Polynesian   Nuclear MP    Malayo-Sumbawan
Subdivisions:	Sundanese Madurese Malayic & West Nusa Tenggara
The Malayo-Sumbawan languages The languages in Cambodia, Vietnam, Hainan, and the northern tip of Sumatra are Chamic languages (purple). The Ibanic languages (orange) are found mostly inland in western Borneo, perhaps the homeland of the Malayic peoples, and across Sarawak. The Malayan languages (dark red) range from central Sumatra, across Malaya, and throughout coastal Kalimantan. Sundanese (pink), Madurese (ocher), and the Bali-Sasak languages (green) are found in and around Java.

The Malayo-Sumbawan languages are a group of languages identified by Adelaar (cit. Adelaar & Himmelmann 2005) that unites the Malayic and Chamic languages with the languages of Java and the western Lesser Sunda Islands, except for Javanese itself.

There are Javanese similarities with Balinese and Sasak of the Lesser Sundas, which several classifications have taken as evidence for a relationship between them. However, the similarities are with the "high" registers (formal language/royal speech) of Balinese and Sasak; when the "low" register (commoner speech) is considered, the connection appears instead to be with Madurese and Malay. This is somewhat similar to the situation with English, where more 'refined' vocabulary suggests a connection with French, but basic language demonstrates its relationship to German.

[edit] Classification

According to Adelaar, the composition of the family is as follows:

• Sundanese (1 or 2 languages of western Java; incl. Baduy)
• Madurese (2 languages of eastern Java and Madura; incl. Kangean)
• Malayic and West Nusa Tenggara
  • Malayic (a dozen languages dispersed from either western Borneo or central Sumatra, including Malay (Malaysian/Indonesian), Minangkabau in central Sumatra, and Iban of western Borneo)
  • Aceh-Chamic (a dozen languages, including Acehnese in Aceh and Cham in Vietnam)
  • Bali-Sasak (3 languages)

Javanese is specifically excluded; the connections between Javanese and Bali-Sasak are said to be restricted to the 'high' register, and disappear when the 'low' register is taken as representative of the languages.

A 2008 analysis of the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database found moderate to poor lexical support for Malayo-Sumbawan: a 60% confidence level with Chamic, rising to 75% without Chamic but keeping Bali-Sasak, and 85% without either Chamic or Bali-Sasak. However, the resulting family is broader than Andelaar's proposal, including not just Moklen and Javanese but nearly all of the languages of the Greater Sunda Islands that were considered: Lampungic, Rejang, and the various branches of Northwest Sumatran excluding the Northern Barrier Islands (Nias etc.).

The languages supported by the 2008 study, including the confidence level for each grouping, are as follows:

Chamic-Sumbawan (60%)

• Moklen-Chamic (70%)
  • Moklen
  • Aceh-Chamic
• Bali-Malayic (75%)
  • Bali-Sasak
  • Batak-Malayic (85%)
    • Batak
    • Java-Malayic (75%)
      • Gayo
      • Rejang
      • Lampungic
      • Javanese
      • Sunda-Malayic (70%)
        • Sunda-Madurese (75%)
          • Sundanese
          • Madurese
        • Banjar-Malayic (80%)
          • Banjar
          • Malayic proper (100%)

(The Enggano and Mentawai languages of Sumatra were not considered.) The difficulty in establishing Malayo-Sumbawan may indicate that, lexically at least, the evidence may point to a Sprachbund rather than a genealogical classification. However, this gets the facts exactly backwards: Lexical similarity more reliably indicates a Sprachbund than a true genetic grouping. Lexical dissimilarity is not an argument against genetic relatedness and for Sprachbund, but rather vice versa (provided that the languages in question have already been shown to be genetically related), which makes the evidence of the database poorly suited to establishing genetic nodes.

[edit] References

• K. Alexander Adelaar and Nikolaus Himmelmann, The Austronesian languages of Asia and Madagascar. Routledge, 2005.
• Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database[1]

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