Greater North Borneo languages: Difference between revisions

|name=Greater North Borneo

|acceptance=proposed

|familycolor=Austronesian

|fam2=[[Malayo-Polynesian languages|Malayo-Polynesian]]

|fam3=[[Western Indonesian languages|Western Indonesian]] ?

|child2=[[Melanau-Kajang languages|Central Sarawak]]

|child3=[[Land Dayak languages|Land Dayak]]

}}

 

 

The proposed subgroup covers some of the major languages in [[Southeast Asia]], including [[Malay language|Malay]]/[[Indonesian language|Indonesian]] and related [[Malayic languages]] such as [[Minangkabau language|Minangkabau]], [[Banjar language|Banjar]] and [[Iban language|Iban]]; as well as [[Sundanese language|Sundanese]] and [[Acehnese language|Acehnese]]. In Borneo itself, the largest non-Malayic GNB language in terms of the number of speakers is [[Central Dusun language|Central Dusun]], mainly spoken in [[Sabah]].{{sfn|Blust|2013|p=65}}

== Classification ==

=== Blust (2010) ===

 

While Blust assumed that all languages of Borneo other than those in Greater Barito subgroup with GNB,{{sfn|Blust|2010|pp=44, 47}} he does not attempt to explicitly classify several languages, including those with insufficient available data.{{sfn|Blust|2010|pp=52–53}}{{sfn|Smith|2017a|p=28}}

*(unclassified)

**[[Melanau language|Melanau]]

=== Smith (2017a, 2017b) ===

Smith recognizes an independent Central Sarawak branch within Greater North Borneo, combining the Melanau, Kajang and Punan–Müller-Schwaner languages.{{sfn|Smith|2017a|p=319}} Additionally, he also excludes Moklenic from GNB and places it all the way up as one of the primary branches of Malayo-Polynesian.{{sfn|Smith|2017b|p=459–460}}

According to [[Roger Blench]] (2010),<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Blench |first=Roger |date=2010 |title=Was there an Austroasiatic Presence in Island Southeast Asia prior to the Austronesian Expansion? |url=http://journals.lib.washington.edu/index.php/JIPA/article/view/10637 |journal=Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association |volume=30 |doi=10.7152/bippa.v30i0.10637}}</ref> [[Austroasiatic languages]] were once spoken in Borneo. Blench cites Austroasiatic-origin vocabulary words in modern-day Bornean branches such as [[Land Dayak languages|Land Dayak]] ([[Bidayuh languages|Bidayuh]], [[Bakati’ language|Dayak Bakatiq]], etc.), [[Dusunic languages|Dusunic]] ([[Dusun language|Central Dusun]], [[Brunei Bisaya language|Bisaya]], etc.), [[Kayan–Murik languages|Kayan]], and [[Kenyah languages|Kenyah]], noting especially resemblances with the [[Aslian languages]] of peninsular Malaysia. As further evidence for his proposal, Blench also cites ethnographic evidence such as musical instruments in Borneo shared in common with Austroasiatic-speaking groups in mainland Southeast Asia.

 

Blench (2010) claims that lexical forms shared among Bornean and Austroasiatic languages include 'rain', 'to die', 'back (of body)', 'flying lemur', 'monkey', 'barking deer', 'lizard', and 'taro'.

 

==References==

* {{Cite journal |last=Blust |first=Robert |date=2010 |title=The Greater North Borneo Hypothesis |journal=Oceanic Linguistics |volume=49 |issue=1 |pages=44–118 |jstor=40783586}}

* {{Cite book |last=Blust |first=Robert |title=The Austronesian languages |date=2013 |publisher=Asia-Pacific Linguistics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University |isbn=9781922185075 |edition=revised |series=Asia-Pacific Linguistics 8 |location=Canberra |hdl=1885/10191 |hdl-access=free}}

{{refend}}