However, few linguists work in the Lesser Sundas, and their primary linguistic data is often unpublished or scattered across various (including “grey”, that is, unpublished but partly circulated) sources. In such circumstances, language relationships have been very important tools for making inferences about human (pre-)history and tracing population movements. Members of the Austronesian family are shown in brown, Timor-Alor-Pantar languages in green.ĭespite its linguistic diversity, the Lesser Sunda Islands can also be characterized as little studied: for most of the region, written historical records, as well as archaeological and ethnographic data are sparse or absent. ![]() 10.1371/001 Fig 1 Linguistic map of the Lesser Sunda region. ![]() This insular region constitutes the westernmost place where languages of the Austronesian family come into contact with Papuan languages of the Timor-Alor-Pantar (TAP) family in eastern Indonesia, as shown in Fig 1. ![]() The area covers a longitudinal distance of some 600 kilometres, including a multitude of islands, major ones of which are Flores, Lembata, Adonara, Solor, Pantar, Alor and Timor. ![]() The Lesser Sunda Islands in eastern Indonesia are an area of high linguistic diversity where several hundreds of often vastly different language varieties are spoken.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |