Location

The Lasalimu language is spoken in the villages of Lasalimu and Malaoge, which lie four kilometers from each other on the eastern side of Buton Island (Donohue 1999:6).

Classification

Apart from some initial word lists, which confirm Lasalimu as a Muna-Buton language (Anceaux 1978; Bhurhanuddin 1979:40–42; Donohue 2004), little is known about this language.

Population

In round figures Bhurhanuddin (1979:51) estimated 2,000 speakers of Lasalimu. With more accurate data, Andersen (1999) revised this downward to 1,700.

References

Anceaux, J. C. 1978. The linguistic position of South-east Sulawesi: A preliminary outline. Second International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics: Proceedings, fascicle 1: Western Austronesian (Pacific Linguistics, C-61), edited by S. A. Würm and Lois Carrington, 275–283. Canberra: Australian National University.

Andersen, T. David. 1999. Suku bahasa di Sulawesi Tenggara. Unpublished typescript, 6 pp.

Bhurhanuddin, B. H. 1979. Bahasa-bahasa daerah di Sulawesi Tenggara. Unpublished typescript, 60 pp.

Donohue, Mark. 1999. A grammar of Tukang Besi. (Mouton Grammar Library, 20.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Donohue, Mark. 2004. The pretenders to the Muna-Buton group. Papers in Austronesian subgrouping and dialectology (Pacific Linguistics, 563), edited by John Bowden and Nikolaus P. Himmelmann, 21–35. Canberra: Australian National University.