Barito

The Barito languages are about twenty Austronesian tongues named after the Barito River of southern Borneo, where most are spoken by Dayak communities. Malagasy, the language of Madagascar, descends from a Southeast Barito speech closest to Ma'anyan of Central Kalimantan.

Malay and Javanese trading fleets carried Barito-speaking labourers and slaves across the Indian Ocean from the first centuries AD, and a Malagasy speech community was established on the great island between the seventh and thirteenth centuries. It later absorbed Bantu and Arabic words and wrote its chronicles in the Arabic-derived Sorabe script before missionaries introduced Latin letters in the early 1800s.

The Sama–Bajaw sea nomads of the Sulu archipelago speak a second offshoot, grouped with Barito under the name Greater Barito. Some linguists regard the whole family as a contact area rather than a strict lineage.