Sabahan languages

The Sabahan languages are a group of Austronesian languages mostly concentrated in the Malaysian state of Sabah, but also extended into neighbouring Sarawak of Malaysia, North Kalimantan of Indonesia, and the sovereign state of Brunei.

Languages

The constituents are separated into two families in Blust :
;Northeast Sabahan

;Southwest Sabahan

Lobel proposes the following internal classification of Southwest Sabahan, based on phonological and morphological evidence.

Lobel lists the following Proto-Southwest Sabahan phonological innovations that were developed from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian.

PMP *h > PSWSAB Ø
PMP *a > PSWSAB *ə / _#
PMP *R > PSWSAB *h / _
PMP *R > PSWSAB *g / ə_
PMP *-m- > ø in PSWSAB reflexes of the PMP pronoun forms *kami ‘1EXCL.NOM’, *mami ‘1EXCL.GEN’, and *kamu ‘2PL.NOM’
Reduction of most PMP consonant clusters to either singletons or prenasalized clusters

Smith proposes a North Borneo group comprising the North Sarawak, Northeast Sabah, and Southwest Sabah branches.