A close relation between Meto and the languages of Rote was proposed in the 20th century by Jonker (1913) and Mills (1991). Edwards (2018a, 2018b, 2021) studied the phonological history of the Rote–Meto languages and reconstructed the ancestral proto-language,
Proto-Rote–Meto, based on internal evidence from the Rote–Meto languages, and also from the top-down by tracing the phonological changes that occurred in Rote–Meto reflexes of
Proto-Austronesian and
Proto-Malayo-Polynesian reconstructions. In spite of being located at the opposite geographical ends of the Rote–Meto speech area, Meto and West Rote varieties share many common features in their lexicon and historical phonology. This suggests that Proto-Rote–Meto first split into two branches, West Rote-Meto and Nuclear Rote. }} Subsequently, Meto came into close contact with Nuclear Rote varieties and underwent some shared innovations with the latter. Most likely, speakers of an early form of the Meto cluster originally lived on Rote Islands in the vicinity of West Rote speakers, but later in history migrated to Timor, where they only remained in contact with speakers of Nuclear Rote varieties. On a higher level, the Rote–Meto languages group with the Austronesian languages spoken to the east. Edwards (2021) includes them in a proposed
Timor–Babar subgroup, that comprises all Austronesian languages languages spoken in an area that ranges from Rote Island across Timor and the
Barat Daya Islands to
Selaru (one of the
Tanimbar Islands). ==Reconstruction==