Languages of Sulawesi


On the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, 114 native languages are spoken, all of which belong to the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup of the Austronesian language family. With a total number of 20,800,000 inhabitants, Sulawesi displays a high linguistic diversity when compared with the most densely populated Indonesian island Java, which hosts 4–8 languages spoken by 156,000,000 inhabitants.

Classification

All but three of the languages of Sulawesi belong to one of the following five subgroups, which are almost exclusively spoken on Sulawesi:
The remaining three languages are affiliated to subgroups which are primarily found outside of Sulawesi. Indonesian Bajau belongs to the Sama–Bajaw languages, and is spoken by scattered, traditionally nomadic coastal communities which are distributed in many areas of eastern Indonesia. Makassar Malay and Manado Malay are Malay-based creoles.
The Gorontalo–Mongondow languages are part of the Greater Central Philippine languages, and thus more closely related to the languages of the central and southern Philippines than to other languages of Sulawesi. The Sangiric and Minahasan languages are included in the proposed Philippine subgroup, which also comprises the Greater Central Philippine languages and several other subgroups of the Philippines.
The Celebic and South Sulawesi languages are primary branches of Malayo-Polynesian.

Language vitality

Some languages, like Buginese and Makassarese, are widely distributed and vigorously used. Many of the languages with much smaller numbers of speakers are also still vigorously spoken, but some languages are almost extinct, because language use of the ethnic population has shifted to the dominant regional language, e.g. in the case of Ponosakan, with four remaining speakers.

List of languages

Gorontalo–Mongondow languages

The Gorontalo–Mongondow languages are spoken in the provinces of Gorontalo, North Sulawesi and Central Sulawesi. The following internal classification is based on Sneddon & Usup :

Sangiric languages

The Sangiric languages are spoken in North Sulawesi, and in the southern Philippines on the Sarangani Islands off the southern coast of Mindanao. The following internal classification is based on Sneddon :

Minahasan languages

The Minahasan languages are spoken in North Sulawesi. The following internal classification is based on Sneddon :

South Sulawesi languages

The South Sulawesi languages are mainly spoken in the provinces of South Sulawesi and West Sulawesi. Languages of the Tamanic branch are spoken outside of Sulawesi in West Kalimantan. The following internal classification is based on Friberg and Laskowske :

Celebic languages

The Celebic languages are primarily spoken in Central Sulawesi and Southeast Sulawesi, and also in parts of South Sulawesi and West Sulawesi. The following internal classification is based on the Ethnologue: