LexiRumah: An online lexical database of the Lesser Sunda Islands.

ABSTRACT: The Lesser Sunda Islands in eastern Indonesia cover a longitudinal distance of some 600 kilometres. They are the westernmost place where languages of the Austronesian family come into contact with a family of Papuan languages and constitute an area of high linguistic diversity. Despite its diversity, the Lesser Sundas are little studied and for most of the region, written historical records, as well as archaeological and ethnographic data are lacking. In such circumstances the study of relationships between languages through their lexicon is a unique tool for making inferences about human (pre-)history and tracing population movements. However, the lack of a collective body of lexical data has severely limited our understanding of the history of the languages and peoples in the Lesser Sund

SUBMITTER: Kaiping GA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6192618 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature