Indonesian Bajau (East Lombok)

Abstract

Bajau is spoken as the primary language from the Philippines to Borneo to eastern Indonesia, by both nomadic and settled communities. It is also known as Badjaw, Badjo, Bajao, Bajo, Bayo, Gaj, Indonesian Bajaw, Orang Laut, Sama, and Terijene; see Simons & Fennig 2017. Glottolog.org lists ‘Indonesian Bajau’ as a language spoken on the south-eastern coast of Sulawesi, glottocode indo1317 and ISO 639-3 bdl. Clifton (2010) claims the population of Bajau speakers is 700,000–900,000, with around 150,000–230,000 in eastern Indonesia (Sather 1997) and 92,000 in Sulawesi (Mead & Lee 2007). There are also Bajau-speaking populations in the Philippines and Borneo (Jun 2005); see Figure 1. Bajau is classified as a threatened Austronesian, Malayo-Polynesian language (Simons & Fennig 2017). It has been proposed that the language originated in the Zamboanga-Basilan area in southern Philippines (Jun 2005 citing Pallesen 1985).