The Flores–Lembata languages are a group of related
Austronesian languages
The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken ...
(geographically
Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages
The Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian (CEMP) languages form a proposed branch of the Malayo-Polynesian languages consisting of over 700 languages (Blust 1993).
Distribution
The Central Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken in the Lesser Sun ...
) spoken in the
Lesser Sundas, on eastern
Flores
Flores is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, a group of islands in the eastern half of Indonesia. Administratively, it forms the largest island in the East Nusa Tenggara Province. The area is 14,250 km2. Including Komodo and Rinca islands ...
and small islands immediately east of Flores,
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...
. They are suspected of having a non-Austronesian
substratum
Substrata, plural of substratum, may refer to:
*Earth's substrata, the geologic layering of the Earth
*''Hypokeimenon'', sometimes translated as ''substratum'', a concept in metaphysics
*Substrata (album), a 1997 ambient music album by Biosphere
* ...
, with extreme morphological simplification in
Sika and secondarily in
Alorese, but not to a greater extent than the
Central Malayo-Polynesian languages in general.
Languages
The generally accepted defined Flores–Lembata languages are:
*
Kedang
*
Sika
*
Lamaholot
In addition, the following is often grouped either as a dialect of Lamaholot or its own language:
*
Adonara
*
Alorese
Lamaholot is a dialect chain. Ethnologue treats ten varieties as distinct languages.
Classification
Elias (2017) proposes the following internal classification of Flores-Lembata.
[Elias, Alexander. 2017. ''Subgrouping the Flores–Lembata languages using Historical Glottometry''. 9th International Austronesian and Papuan Languages and Linguistics Conference]
APLL9
, 21–23 June 2017, LACITO, Paris.
*Flores-Lembata
**Sika-Hewa
***
Sika
***Hewa
**Kedang-Lamaholot
***
Kedang
***
Lamaholot
****Central Lamaholot
****Eastern-Western Lamaholot
*****Eastern Lamaholot
*****Alorese-Western Lamaholot
******
Alorese
******Western Lamaholot
Linguistic areas are:
*''East
Lembata
Lembata is an island in the Lesser Sunda Islands, also known as Lomblen or Kawela; it is the largest island of the Solor Archipelago, in the Lesser Sunda Islands, Indonesia. It forms a separate regency of the province of Nusa Tenggara Timur. Th ...
'': Kedan, Eastern Lamaholot
*''Sedentary
Lembata
Lembata is an island in the Lesser Sunda Islands, also known as Lomblen or Kawela; it is the largest island of the Solor Archipelago, in the Lesser Sunda Islands, Indonesia. It forms a separate regency of the province of Nusa Tenggara Timur. Th ...
'': Eastern Lamaholot,
Alorese, Western Lamaholot, Central Lamaholot
See also
*
Central Flores languages
References
Further reading
*
External links
LexiRumah(part of th
Lesser Sunda linguistic databasesReconstructing the past through languages of the present: the Lesser Sunda Islands
{{DEFAULTSORT:Flores-Lembata languages
Languages of Indonesia
Flores Island (Indonesia)
Solor Archipelago