Sama

The Sama or Sinama languages form the Sama–Bajaw group of Malayo-Polynesian tongues, spoken by the boat- and shore-dwelling Sama-Bajau of the Sulu Sea. Lexical evidence traces their origin to the Barito region of south-eastern Borneo, making them a sister branch of the Barito languages and Malagasy.

The Sama-Bajau are thought to have taken shape around the Zamboanga Peninsula by about the year 800, and seaborne groups spread to Basilan, Sulu, Borneo and Sulawesi from the tenth century. They traded trepang, pearls and shark fin to China, accepted Islam by the sixteenth century and usually wrote their languages in the Jawi alphabet.

Pigafetta of the Magellan expedition met people who made their dwellings in boats in 1521. Under the Sultanate of Sulu the Banguingui Sama served as crews and raiders alongside the Iranun in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.