Location

Kaimbulawa is spoken in three villages: Kaimbulawa and Lantoi on the southeastern coast of Siompu Island and, just across a small strait, in Kambekambero village on the southwestern coast of Buton Island. See the sketch map in Van den Berg (1991:51) for the location of these villages.

Dialects

In terms of its word stock, the variety spoken in Kambekambero village shares similarities with both the Busoa language to its north (84% similar in basic vocabulary) and with Kaimbulawa to its west (80% to 82% similar in basic vocabulary), but Van den Berg grouped it as a dialect of the latter based on shared innovations (1991:45). 

Population

Andersen (2006:8) estimates 2,200 speakers of Kaimbulawa. This total omits speakers residing in Kambekambero village.

References

Andersen, T. David. 2006. Suku bahasa di Sulawesi Tenggara. Unpublished typescript, 11 pp.

Berg, René van den. 1991. Muna dialects and Munic languages: Towards a reconstruction. VICAL 2: Western Austronesian and contact languages: papers from the Fifth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics, edited by Ray Harlow, 21–51. Auckland: Linguistic Society of New Zealand.