Batak

Batak denotes a cluster of Malayo-Polynesian languages of northern Sumatra and the Barrier Islands. Around Lake Toba, the Batak languages proper divide into northern and southern branches; the wider group also takes in Gayo and the island languages of Nias, Mentawai and the divergent Enggano.

Batak highlanders traded camphor, benzoin and pepper through ports such as Barus, where a Tamil inscription of 1088 survives, and Chinese and Portuguese sources describe a Batak land under Srivijayan and later Acehnese influence. From the sixteenth century the pepper trade of Aceh drew the Batak highlands into closer commerce with the Muslim sultanates on their coasts.

The languages were written in the Surat Batak script, derived from Pallava and Kawi models, which datu priests used mainly for divinatory and magical texts, while love laments kept the craft alive among ordinary speakers.