Location
Bintauna is spoken along the coastal plain on the northern (Celebes Sea) side of the northern peninsula of Sulawesi, sandwiched between the Mongondow language to its east and the Kaidipang-Bolangitang language to its west (see sketch map in Sneddon and Usup 1986:408 among others). In nineteenth-century Dutch sources, Bintauna was recognized as one of a handful of principalities (rijkjes) along the northern coast in the Mongondow area (Van Doren 1860 inter alia).
Population
Indonesian census figures for the year 2000 report an ethnic population of 11,200 Bintauna.
References
Doren, J. B. J. van. 1860. “De rijkjes Bolang-Mogondo, Bolang-Banka, Bintawoena, Bolang-Itam, Kaidipan, Andagile en Bwool, aan de Noord-kust van Celebes gelegen.” Chapter 2 in Bijdragen tot de kennis van verschillende overzeesche landen, volken, enz., vol. 1. Amsterdam: J. D. Sybrandi.
Sneddon, J. N.; and Hunggu Tadjuddin Usup. 1986. Shared sound changes in the Gorontalic language group: Implications for subgrouping. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 142:407–426.
