A Collaboration Between Linguistics and Genetics: Tracing the Bajo Diaspora History in Eastern Indonesia
- DOI
- 10.2991/icirad-17.2017.50How to use a DOI?
- Keywords
- Sama-Bajau, Bajo, Sama-Bajau language, sea nomads, maritime diaspora, Bugis, Sulu Archipelago
- Abstract
This paper aims at comparing and discussing recent findings from human genetics (genomics) and linguistics, regarding the long-lasting question of the Sama-Bajau / Bajo diaspora in Eastern Indonesia, Sulu archipelago (South Philippines) and Sabah (Malaysia). The Bajo are a maritime-oriented people, and some of them were sea nomads until the 1970s. They scattered over this wide zone centuries ago, they forgot their territory of origin, and the original Sama-Bajau language locally diversified in a dozen of languages or dialects. If we consider the common patterns of their origin myths, it seems that they were forced to flee their homeland by a foreign power. Genomics shows early admixtures with the Bugis (South Sulawesi) and the dating of their diaspora broadly matches with the linguistic data. The unidentified political event that drove them out their homeland probably happened at the end of the 11th century. If genetics and linguistics data correspond, these data are strongly backed. However, we came upon a serious discrepancy about the location of the Sama-Bajau homeland: geneticists assert it was South Sulawesi, while linguists believe it was South Kalimantan, because SB languages are related to South Barito cluster more than to any other language in Southeast Asia.
- Copyright
- © 2017, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.
- Open Access
- This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).
Cite this article
TY - CONF AU - Philippe Grang, PY - 2017/08 DA - 2017/08 TI - A Collaboration Between Linguistics and Genetics: Tracing the Bajo Diaspora History in Eastern Indonesia BT - Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Innovative Research Across Disciplines (ICIRAD 2017) PB - Atlantis Press SP - 269 EP - 276 SN - 2352-5398 UR - https://doi.org/10.2991/icirad-17.2017.50 DO - 10.2991/icirad-17.2017.50 ID - Grang,2017/08 ER -