Lampung

Lampung is a Lampungic language of the Austronesian family, spoken by the Lampung people of southern Sumatra and neighbouring parts of South Sumatra and Banten. It splits into the coastal Api or Pesisir dialect and the interior Nyo or Abung dialect. Traditionally it is written in the Lampung alphabet, a Rencong abugida descended from the Old Javanese Kawi script.

The region entered written history with Srivijaya: stone inscriptions of about 680 mark the southernmost reach of that maritime empire, and an Old Malay inscription of 997 survives at Hujung Langit, after which Majapahit claimed the area.

From the mid-sixteenth century the pepper-rich coasts passed under the Banten Sultanate, which monopolized the Lampung pepper trade, and in 1752 the Dutch annexed the region. Lampung remained the everyday speech of the river valleys, even as Malay served trade and administration.