North Sarawakan languages explained

North Sarawakan
Region:	Northern Sarawak, Borneo
Familycolor:	Austronesian
Fam2:	Malayo-Polynesian
Fam3:	North Bornean
Child1:	Kenyah
Child3:	Berawan–Lower Baram
Child4:	Bintulu
Child5:	? Punan Tubu
Glotto:	nort3171
Glottorefname:	North Sarawakan

The North Sarawakan languages are a group of Austronesian languages spoken in the northeastern part of the province of Sarawak, Borneo, and proposed in Blust (1991, 2010).

North Sarawakan languages

• Kenyah
• Dayic languages (Apo Duat)
• Berawan–Lower Baram
• Bintulu

Ethnologue 16 adds Punan Tubu as an additional branch, and notes that Bintulu might be closest to Baram. The Melanau–Kajang languages were removed in Blust 2010.

The Northern Sarawak languages are well known for strange phonological histories.

Classification

Smith (2017)^[1] classifies the North Sarawakan languages as follows.

• Bintulu
• Berawan–Lower Baram
  • Berawan (various dialects)
  • Lower Baram (Miri, Kiput, Narum, Belait, Lelak, Lemeting, Dali’)
• Dayic
  • Kelabit (Bario, Pa’ Dalih, Tring, Sa’ban, Long Seridan, Long Napir)
  • Lun Dayeh (Long Bawan, Long Semadoh)
• Kenyah
  • Highland (Lepo’ Gah, Lepo’ Tau, Lepo’ Sawa, Lepo’, Lepo’ Laang, Badeng, Lepo’ Jalan, Uma’ Baha, Uma’ Bem, Òma Lóngh)
  • Lowland
    • Eastern Lowland (Uma’ Pawe, Uma’ Timai, Lebo’ Kulit)
    • Western Lowland (Lebo’Vo’, Sebop, Penan (eastern and western varieties))

References

• K. Alexander Adelaar and Nikolaus Himmelmann, The Austronesian languages of Asia and Madagascar. Routledge, 2005.
• Blust . Robert A. . Robert Blust . Must sound change be linguistically motivated? . Diachronica . 7 December 2005 . 22 . 2 . 219–269 . 10.1075/dia.22.2.02blu . 10.1.1.570.7803 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220617212824/https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.570.7803&rep=rep1&type=pdf . 17 June 2022 . live.

Notes and References

1. Smith, Alexander. 2017. The Languages of Borneo: A Comprehensive Classification. PhD Dissertation: University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.