Gayo Language is the spoken language

Language

Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...

 of about 180,000 people (1989) in the mountain region of North Sumatra

North Sumatra

North Sumatra is a province of Indonesia on the Sumatra island. Its capital is Medan. It is the most populous Indonesian province outside of Java. It is slightly larger than Sri Lanka in area.- Geography and population :...

 around Takengon

Takengon

Takengon is a town in Aceh, a province of Indonesia and is the seat of the Central Aceh Regency. The town is in the highlands of western Sumatra and situated on the shores of Lake Lut Tawar. The region around Takengon is well-known for its coffee. The indigenous people in Takengon are the Gayonese...

, Gayo Lues, Bener Meriah, Southeast Aceh, Genteng, and Lokop. It is classified as belonging to the Western Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian languages

Austronesian languages

The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...

, but is not closely related to other languages.

Gayo is distinguished with other languages in Aceh. Not only limited to the language, but also the art and culture of Gayo people is different with the Acehnese people.

In 1907 G.A.J. Hazeu wrote a first Gayo–Dutch dictionary for the colonial authorities of the Dutch East Indies