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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) 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))

Footnotes

1. Blust 2005, p. 241.
2. Smith, Alexander. 2017. The Languages of Borneo: A Comprehensive Classification. PhD Dissertation: University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.

References

• K. Alexander Adelaar and Nikolaus Himmelmann, The Austronesian languages of Asia and Madagascar. Routledge, 2005.
• Blust, Robert A. (7 December 2005). "Must sound change be linguistically motivated?". Diachronica. 22 (2): 219–269. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.570.7803. doi:10.1075/dia.22.2.02blu. Archived from the original on 17 June 2022.

• North Sarawakan languages