Kinship Relationships between Javanese and Wolio Languages (A Comparative Historical Linguistic Study)

Abstract

  This research aims to describe phonemic correspondences, genetic relationships, and indicate the time of language divergence between Javanese and Wolio languages. The theory used in this research is the Comparative Historical Linguistics (CHL) theory. The data used in the research consist of 200 basic Swadesh vocabularies items. The data in this research were obtained from informants in the form of transcribed interviews. The data are analyzed using lexicostatistics and glottochronology methods. The results show that the percentage of genetic relationships between Javanese and Wolio languages is 18%. Out of 200 basic vocabularies items, there are 34 cognate pairs, 164 non-cognate pairs, and 2 uncounted pairs. Based on lexicostatistical and glottochronological calculations, Javanese and Wolio languages diverged as separate languages approximately 4,316 to 3,814 years ago. Javanese and Wolio languages belong to the same language family at a subgroup level.