The Sama–Bajaw languages are a well established group of languages spoken by the Bajau ('Sea Gypsies

Sea Gypsies

Sea Gypsies may refer to:In geography, it can refer to any of several groups in southeast Asia:* Bajau, an indigenous ethnic group residing in Sabah, eastern Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, the Philippines, and parts of Sarawak, sometimes including the people who speak Makassar, and Bugis.* Moken,...

') and Sama

Sama people

The Sama are an indigenous ethnic group of the Philippines and Malaysia. They are native to the Sulu Archipelago and can be found in large numbers throughout the Zamboanga Peninsula, Davao del Sur, and Sabah Malaysia...

 (Sinama) peoples of the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

 and Malaysia, on Borneo

Borneo

Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....

 and the Sulu Archipelago

Sulu Archipelago

The Sulu Archipelago is a chain of islands in the southwestern Philippines. This archipelago is considered to be part of the Moroland by the local rebel independence movement. This island group forms the northern limit of the Celebes Sea....

 between Borneo and Mindanao

Mindanao

Mindanao is the second largest and easternmost island in the Philippines. It is also the name of one of the three island groups in the country, which consists of the island of Mindanao and smaller surrounding islands. The other two are Luzon and the Visayas. The island of Mindanao is called The...

.

Languages

• Abaknon/Inabaknon
  Abaknon language
  The Inabaknon language, also known as the Abaknon language or the Capul language is a language primarily spoken in the island-municipality of Capul, Northern Samar in the Eastern Visayas region...
  
  
• Sulu–Borneo
  • Bajaw
    Bajaw language
    Bajaw is the language of the Bajaw 'Sea Gypsies' of Maritime Southeast Asia. Differences exist between the language's varieties in western Sabah, Cagayan in the southern Philippines , eastern Sabah, and Sulawesi/Maluku, but it is not clear how many languages these would be based on mutual...
    
    
  • Sama
    Sama language
    Sama Inner Sulu Sama is the language of the Sama people of the Sulu Archipelago. Their is some difference between the islands, and Ethnologue divides it into three languages based on mutual intelligibility. Pangutaran Sama to the west is more distinct.The prestige dialect is that of Simunul....
    
    
  • Pangutaran Sama

A 2008 analysis of the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database supported the unity of the Sama–Bajaw languages, and the primary divergence of Abaknon. To a 73% confidence level, it next split Mapun Bajaw from Bajaw, Samal, and Yakan

Yakan language

Yakan is the language of Basilan Island in the Philippines. It is the only Bornean language in that country....

, the last generally accepted as a Bornean language. It also suggested with 74% confidence that Sama–Bajaw forms an exclusive family with the Philippine languages

Philippine languages

The Philippine languages are a 1991 proposal by Robert Blust that all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi—except Sama–Bajaw and a few languages of Palawan—form a subfamily of Austronesian languages...

. Blust (2006), however, states that lexical evidence indicates that Sama–Bajaw originated in the Barito

Barito River

Barito is a 890 km long river, located in South Kalimantan, Indonesia. It originates in the Muller Mountain Range from where it flows southward into the Java Sea...

 region of southeast Borneo, though not from any established group of Barito languages

Barito languages

The Barito languages are a score of Dayak languages of Borneo, and most famously Malagasy, the national language of Madagascar. They are named after the Barito River....

. Ethnologue has followed, calling the resulting group 'Greater Barito'.