Languages of Sulawesi

[1] With a total number of 17,200,000 inhabitants (2015 estimate, based on census data from 2010),[2] Sulawesi displays a high linguistic diversity when compared with the most densely populated Indonesian island Java,[3] which hosts 4–8 languages (depending on count) spoken by 145,100,000 inhabitants.

Indonesian Bajau belongs to the Sama–Bajaw languages, and is spoken by scattered, traditionally nomadic coastal communities (locally known as Bajo people) which are distributed in many areas of eastern Indonesia.

[6] The Celebic and South Sulawesi languages are primary branches of Malayo-Polynesian.

The following internal classification is based on Sneddon (1984):[10] The Minahasan languages are spoken in North Sulawesi.

Languages of the Tamanic branch are spoken outside of Sulawesi in West Kalimantan.