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The autochthonous languages of Borneo have been divided into ten separate subgroups (Hudson 1978). This paper discusses four subgroups on which the author has done research. The Southeast Barito subgroup includes Malagasy. This language underwent considerable influence from Malay and Javanese. Malay influence appears to have lasted until after the introduction of Islam in Southeast Asia, and there are also some indications that the Arabic script was introduced to Madagascar by Indonesians (possibly Javanese). The author puts forth the hypothesis that the Malagasy, rather than having sailed to Madagascar of their own accord, may have been transported there (as subordinates) by Malays. The Malayic subgroup includes Iban and Malay. The diversity and relative archaism of the Malayic languages spoken in West Borneo suggest that the Malayic homeland may have been in this area. The Tamanic languages are phonologically, morphosyntactically and lexically close enough to the South Sulawesi languages to form a subgroup with them. They have some striking phonological developments in common with Buginese, with which they seem to form a separate branch within the South Sulawesi language group. The Land Dayak languages have a few striking lexical and phonological similarities in common with Aslian languages. This suggests that Land Dayak originated as the result of a language shift from Aslian to Austronesian, or that both Land Dayak and Aslian have in common a substratum from an unknown third language.

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This PDF-file was downloaded from http://www.kitlv-journals.nl K. ALEXANDER ADELAAR Where does Malay come from? Twenty years of discussions about homeland, migrations and classifications 1 That is the region where speakers of the hypothetical proto-language ancestral to a linguistic subgroup must have lived before they dispersed to other regions. In the case of speakers of Malayic isolects, this is the region where speakers of Proto Malayic originally lived.