East Barito languages

Not to be confused with East Barito Regency.
East Barito
Geographic
distribution		Indonesia (south Borneo)
Madagascar
Linguistic classificationAustronesian
Language codes
Glottologeast2713

The East Barito languages are a group of a dozen Dayak (Austronesian) languages of Borneo, Indonesia, and most notably Malagasy, the national language of Madagascar. They are named after the Barito River located in South Kalimantan, Indonesia.

The languages are,

Several of the languages are named 'Dusun' because they are spoken by the Dusun people; they are not to be confused with the Dusunic languages, which are also spoken by the Dusun but belong to a different branch of Malayo-Polynesian.

The most described East Barito language is Malagasy, which is also the best known language of the Barito group.[1] South East Borneo is considered to be the original homeland of Malagasy.[2][3] Malagasy is thought to have been brought to the East Africa region by Austronesian-speaking migrants between the 7th and 13th centuries.[4][5] Some linguistic evidence suggests that a distinct Malagasy language variety had already emerged in Borneo before the early Malagasy migrants reached Madagascar.[6][7]

  1. ^ Smith (2018), p. 15.
  2. ^ Adelaar (2006a), p. 205.
  3. ^ Adelaar (2017), p. 441–442.
  4. ^ Adelaar (1995), p. 328.
  5. ^ Adelaar (2006b), p. 84.
  6. ^ Adelaar (2016), p. 71–76.
  7. ^ Adelaar (2017).