Savu languages explained

Savu
Region:Lesser Sunda Islands, Indonesia
Familycolor:Austronesian
Fam1:Unclear, perhaps Austronesian
Fam3:Sumba–Flores ?
Child1:Hawu
Child2:Dhao
Glotto:hawu1234
Glottorefname:Hawu–Dhao
Map:Savu languages.png

The Savu languages, Hawu and Dhao, are spoken on Savu and Ndao Islands in East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia.

Classification

Cappell (1975) noted a large amount of non-Austronesian vocabulary and grammatical features in the Central Malayo-Polynesian languages of East Nusa Tenggara and Maluku, notably in Hawu. While he generally spoke of a non-Austronesian substratum, Hawu is so divergent from Austronesian norms that he classified it (and Dhao) as a non-Austronesian language. He says,