Native to Indonesia ISO 639-2 gay Glottolog gayo1244 | Native speakers 300,000 (2000 census) ISO 639-3 gay Region Sumatra | |
Language family Austronesian languages | ||
Gayo is the spoken language of some 300,000 people (2010) in the mountain region of North Sumatra around Central Aceh, Bener Meriah and Gayo Lues. It is classified as belonging to the Western Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian languages, but is not closely related to other languages. Ethnologue lists Deret, Lues, Lut, and Serbejadi-Lukup as dialects.
Gayo is distinguished from other languages in Aceh. The art and culture of Gayo people and also significantly different compared with other Acehnese people.
In 1907, G.A.J. Hazeu wrote a first Gayo–Dutch dictionary for the colonial authorities of the Dutch East Indies.
References
Gayo language Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA