Cognates among the Karo, Alas and Gayo Languages
Dardanila, Robert Sibarani, Dwi Widayati, Aron Meko Mbete

Introduction
This study is specifically concerned with description of cognates among the Karo, Alas, and Gayo languages and was conducted in three regencies: Karo, Alas and Gayo. The Karo is one of regencies in North Sumatera Province while the rest are part of Aceh; however, the three share the same borders. Data for this study were gathered among the native speakers. The comparative method is used here and the technique of lexicostatistics is also adopted. On the basis of the results of this research, it can be concluded that quantitatively there were close relations of kinship attributed to the cognate percentages by 73% between the Karo and Alas, by 43.5% between the Karo and Gayo, and by 52.5% between Alas and Gayo. The split time between Karo and Alas was predicted to be around 0,729 thousands of years ago. This means that Alas became a single language at around 0,729 thousands of years ago. The split time between Karo and Gayo was thought to be 1,926 thousands of years ago, meaning that Gayo became an independent language at about 1,926 thousands of years ago. The split time between Alas and Gayo was around 1,484; this means that Gayo was considered a single language at around 1,484.

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