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. It is on par with Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic and Uralic as one of the best-established ancient language families. The name Austronesian comes from Latin auster "south wind" plus Greek nêsos "island". The family is aptly named as the vast majority of Austronesian languages are spoken on islands: only a few languages, such as Malay and the Chamic languages, are autochthonous to mainland Asia. Many Austronesian languages have very few speakers, but the major Austronesian languages are spoken by tens of millions of people. Some Austronesian languages are official languages (see the list of Austronesian languages). It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Malay Archipelago. ... For other uses, see Oceania (disambiguation). ... A language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common proto-language. ... A language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common proto-language. ... The Formosan languages are a group of Austronesian languages spoken 2% of the population of Taiwan, almost exclusively aboriginals. ... The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages used by some 351 million speakers. ... ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. ... A language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common proto-language. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Malay Archipelago. ... For other meanings of Pacific, see Pacific (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Asia (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Indo-European. ... The Afro-Asiatic languages constitute a language family (Languages of Africa) with about 375 languages (SIL estimate) and more than 300 million speakers spread throughout North Africa, East Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, and Southwest Asia (including some 200 million speakers of Arabic). ... Geographical distribution of Samoyedic, Finnic, Ugric and Yukaghir languages  Yukaghir  Samoyedic  Ugric  Finnic The Uralic languages (pronounced: ) form a language family of about 30 languages spoken by approximately 20 million people. ... For other uses, see Latins and Latin (disambiguation). ... Not to be confused with the Malayalam language, spoken in India. ... The Chamic languages are a group of nine languages spoken in parts of Vietnam and Cambodia, classified as West Indonesian languages in the Hesperonesian group of the Austronesian language family. ... An autochthonous language is an indigenous language, one resident for a considerable length of time in a territory or region spoken by an autochthonous group. ... An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in the countries, states, and other territories. ...

There is legitimate debate among linguists as to which language family comprises the largest number of languages. Austronesian is clearly one candidate, with 1268 (according to Ethnologue), or roughly one-fifth of the known languages of the world. The geographical span of the homelands of its languages is also among the widest, ranging from Madagascar to Easter Island. Hawaiian, Rapanui, and Malagasy (spoken on Madagascar) are the geographic outliers of the Austronesian family. Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics), a Christian linguistic service organization which studies lesser-known languages primarily to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language. ... Rapa Nui redirects here. ... The Hawaiian language is an Austronesian language that takes its name from Hawaiʻi, the largest island in the tropical North Pacific archipelago where it developed. ... The Rapa Nui language (also Rapanui) is the Eastern Polynesian language of Easter Island, forming its own subgroup of that classification. ...

Austronesian has several primary branches, all but one of which are found exclusively on Taiwan. The Formosan languages of Taiwan are grouped into as many as nine first-order subgroups of Austronesian. All Austronesian languages spoken outside Taiwan (including its offshore Yami language) belong to the Malayo-Polynesian branch, sometimes called Extra-Formosan. The Formosan languages are a group of Austronesian languages spoken 2% of the population of Taiwan, almost exclusively aboriginals. ... The Tao (Chinese: ) language, also known referred to as Yami (雅美), is spoken by a Taiwanese aboriginal people, native to tiny outlying Orchid Island. ... The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages used by some 351 million speakers. ...

Homeland

The protohistory of the Austronesian people can be traced farther back through time than can that of the Proto-Austronesian language. From the standpoint of historical linguistics, the home of the Austronesian languages is the main island of Taiwan, also known as Formosa; on this island the deepest divisions in Austronesian are found, among the families of the native Formosan languages. According to Blust (1999), the Formosan languages form nine of the ten primary branches of the Austronesian language family. Comrie (2001:28) noted this when he wrote: Historical linguistics (also diachronic linguistics or comparative linguistics) is primarily the study of the ways in which languages change over time. ... This article is about the history, geography, and people of the island known as Taiwan. ... Formosa is a place name which comes from Portuguese (*from Latin formosus, meaning beautiful). The following places bear the name: The island of Taiwan was historically known as Formosa, the name given by Portuguese sailors due to the beauty of its coasts. ... The Formosan languages are a group of Austronesian languages spoken 2% of the population of Taiwan, almost exclusively aboriginals. ... Austronesian redirects here. ... Bernard Comrie (1947-05-23 - ) is a professor at and the director of the Max Planck Institute for evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. ...

At least since Sapir (1968), linguists have generally accepted that the chronology of the dispersal of languages within a given language family can be traced from the area of greatest linguistic variety to that of the least. While some scholars suspect that the number of principal branches among the Formosan languages may be somewhat less than Blust's estimate of nine (e.g. Li 2006), there is little contention among linguists with this analysis and the resulting view of the origin and direction of the migration. [For a recent dissenting analysis, see (Peiros 2004).] Genetic, in linguistics, means due to descent from a common ancestor language, rather than borrowing at some time in the past between languages that were not necessarily descended from a common ancestor. ... Edward Sapir (IPA: ), (January 26, 1884 – February 4, 1939) was an American anthropologist-linguist, a leader in American structural linguistics, and one of the creators of what is now called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. ... Austronesian redirects here. ...

To get an idea of the original homeland of the Austronesian people, scholars can probe evidence from archaeology and genetics. Studies from the science of genetics have produced conflicting outcomes. Some researchers find evidence for a proto-Austronesian homeland on the Asian mainland (e.g., Melton et al., 1998), while others mirror the linguistic research, rejecting an East Asian origin in favor of Taiwan (e.g., Trejaut et al., 2005). Archaeological evidence (e.g., Bellwood 1997) is more consistent, suggesting that the ancestors of the Austronesians spread from the South Chinese mainland to Taiwan at some time around 8,000 years ago. Evidence from historical linguistics suggests that it is from this island that seafaring peoples migrated, perhaps in distinct waves separated by millennia, to the entire region encompassed by the Austronesian languages (Diamond 2000). It is believed that this migration began around 6,000 years ago (Blust 1999). However, evidence from historical linguistics cannot bridge the gap between those two periods. The view that linguistic evidence connects Proto-Austronesian languages to the Sino-Tibetan ones, as proposed for example by Sagart (2002), is a minority view. As Fox (2004:8) states: This article is about the general scientific term. ... Austronesian redirects here. ... Austronesian redirects here. ... Austronesian redirects here. ...

Linguistic analysis of the Proto-Austronesian language stops at the western shores of Taiwan; the related mainland language(s) have not survived. The sole exception, a Chamic language, is a more recent migrant (Thurgood 1999:225). The Pescadores Islands (Chinese: 澎湖群島; Wade-Giles: Peng-hu; Pinyin: Pénghú, from Portuguese, fishermen) are an archipelago in the Taiwan Strait. ... Austronesian redirects here. ...

Distant relations

austric and Austro-Tai

Genealogical links have been proposed between Austronesian and various families of Southeast Asia in what is generally called an Austric phylum. However, the only one of these proposals that conforms to the comparative method is the "Austro-Tai" hypothesis, which links Austronesian to the Tai-Kadai languages. Roger Blench (2004:12) said about Austro-Tai that: The Austric language superfamily is a large theoretical grouping of languages primarily spoken in Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and the eastern Indian subcontinent. ... Location of Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is a subregion of Asia. ... The Austric language superfamily is a large theoretical grouping of languages primarily spoken in Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and the eastern Indian subcontinent. ... A phylum is a term in linguistics used for language classification which denotes the highest recognized level of hierarchy. ... The comparative method (in comparative linguistics) is a technique used by linguists to demonstrate genetic relationships between languages. ... The Tai-Kadai languages are a language family found in Southeast Asia and southern China. ... Roger Blench is a linguist, ethnomusicologist and development anthropologist. ...

That is, in the classification below Tai-Kadai would be a branch of the Borneo-Philippines languages. However, neither form of Austro-Tai has gained general acceptance in the linguistic community.

Japanese

It has also been proposed that Japanese may be a distant relative of the Austronesian family, but this is rejected by all mainstream linguistic specialists. The evidence for any sort of connection is slight, and many linguists think it is more plausible that Japanese might have instead been influenced by Austronesian languages, perhaps by an Austronesian substratum. Those who propose this scenario suggest that the Austronesian family once covered the islands to the north of Formosa (western Japanese areas such as the Ryūkyū Islands and Kyūshū) as well as to the south. However, there is no genetic evidence for an especially close relationship between speakers of Austronesian languages and speakers of Japonic languages, so if there was any prehistoric interaction between them, it is likely to have been one of simple cultural exchange without significant ethnic mixing. In fact, genetic analyses consistently show that the Ryukyuans between Taiwan and the main islands of Japan are genetically less similar to the Taiwanese aborigines than are the Japanese, which suggests that if there was any interaction between proto-Austronesian and proto-Japonic, it occurred on the mainland prior to the extinction of Austronesian languages on mainland China and the introduction of Japonic to Japan, not in the Ryukyus. This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Location of Ryukyu Islands. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... The Japonic languages or Japanese-Ryukyuan languages constitute a language family that is agreed to have descended from a common ancestral language known as Proto-Japonic or Proto-Japanese-Ryukyuan. ... Ryukyuans (Japanese: 琉球民族, RyÅ«kyÅ« minzoku; Okinawan: ウチナンチュ, Uchinanchu) are the indigenous peoples of the Ryukyu Islands of Japan between the islands of KyÅ«shÅ« and Taiwan. ...

Other analyses place Japanese into the family of Altaic languages; however, these analyses are also not without controversy. Altaic is a proposed language family that includes 66 languages [1] spoken by about 348 million people, mostly in and around Central Asia and northeast Asia. ...

Structure

It is very difficult to make meaningful generalizations about the languages that make up a family as rich and diverse as Austronesian. Speaking very broadly, the Austronesian languages can be divided into three groups of languages: Philippine-type languages, Indonesian-type languages and post-Indonesian type (Ross 2002). The first group is characterized by relatively strong verb-initial word order and Philippine-type voice alternations. This phenomenon has frequently been referred to as focus. However, the relevant literature is beginning to avoid this term. Many linguists feel that the phenomenon is better described as voice, and that the terminology creates confusion with more common uses of the word focus within linguistics. Austronesian redirects here. ... Austronesian alignment, commonly known as the Philippine- or Austronesian-type voice system, is a typologically unusual morphosyntactic alignment that combines features of ergative and accusative languages. ... In linguistics, the focus determines which part of the sentence contributes the most important information. ...

The Austronesian languages tend to use reduplication (repetition of all or part of a word, such as wiki-wiki), and, like many East and Southeast Asian languages, have highly restrictive phonotactics, with small numbers of phonemes and predominantly consonant-vowel syllables. Reduplication, in linguistics, is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word, or only part of it, is repeated. ... Wiki Wiki Bus The Wiki Wiki Shuttle is a famous Hawaii native bus system that transports people from airplanes to passenger loading terminals at the Honolulu International Airport on Oahu. ... This article is about the geographical region. ... Location of Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is a subregion of Asia. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... In human language, a phoneme is the theoretical representation of a sound. ...

Classification

The internal structure of the Austronesian languages is difficult to work out, as the family consists of many very similar and very closely related languages with large numbers of dialect continua, making it difficult to recognize boundaries between branches. In even the best classifications available today, many of the groups in the Philippines and Indonesia are geographic conveniences rather than reflections of relatedness. However, it is clear that the greatest genealogical diversity is found among the Formosan languages of Taiwan, and the least diversity among the islands of the Pacific, supporting a dispersal of the family from Taiwan or China. Below is a consensus opinion of Malayo-Polynesian, with the Western Malayo-Polynesian classification based on Wouk & Ross (2002). The Formosan languages are listed both with and without subgrouping. A dialect continuum is a range of dialects spoken across a large geographical area, differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close, and gradually decreasing in mutual intelligibility as the distances become greater. ...

Formosan classification I

The seminal article regarding the subgroupings of Formosan (and by extension, the top-level structure of Austronesian) is Blust (1999). His proposed grouping was certainly not the first. In fact, he lists no less than seventeen others, discussing some of their features. Prominent Formosanists (linguists who specialize in Formosan languages) take issue with some of its details. However, it remains the point of reference for current linguistic analyses. Note that the first nine primary branches of Austronesian are composed entirely of Formosan languages: Austronesian redirects here. ...

Austronesian

• Atayalic (Atayal, Seediq) [note alternate names for Seediq:Truku, Taroko, Sediq]
• East Formosan
  • Northern (Basai-Trobiawan, Kavalan)
  • Central (Amis)
  • Southwest (Siraya)
• Puyuma
• Paiwan
• Rukai
• Tsouic (Tsou, Saaroa, Kanakanabu)
• Bunun
• Western Plains
  • Central Western Plains (Taokas-Babuza, Papora-Hoanya)
  • Thao
• Northwest Formosan (Saisiyat, Kulon-Pazeh)
• Malayo-Polynesian (see below)

However, there are no mainland China remnants of the Austronesian-speakers cited in this paper, and there are no identified immediate ancestor-languages, on the island, of Malayo-Polynesian, the single language sub-group proposed as the ancestor for all the other 1200+ recognised Austronesian languages, that spread to Madagascar and Easter Island, Hawaii and New Zealand. The Atayal language is spoken by the Atayal people on Taiwan. ... Truku language, or Taroko language, one of the Taiwanese aboriginal languages, is spoken by the Truku people. ... Kavalan was formerly spoken in the Northeast coast area of Taiwan by the Kavalan (噶瑪蘭) tribe. ... Amis is the language of the Amis or Ami, a tribe of indigenous people on Taiwan (see Taiwanese aborigines). ... The Siraya Boulevard in Southern Taiwan Science Park. ... Puyuma is the language of Puyuma, a tribe of indigenous people on Taiwan (see Taiwanese aborigines). ... Paiwan is a native language of Taiwan, spoken by the Paiwan people, one tribe of the Taiwanese aborigines. ... Rukai is the language of the Rukai, a tribe of indigenous people on Taiwan (see Taiwanese aborigines. ... Tsou is the language of the Tsou, a tribe of indigenous people on Taiwan (see Taiwanese aborigines). ... Saaroa is the language of the Saaroa, a tribe of indigenous people on Taiwan (see Taiwanese aborigines). ... Kanakanabu (Kanakanavu) is the language of the Kanakanabu, a tribe of indigenous people on Taiwan (see Taiwanese aborigines). ... The Bunun language (布農話) is spoken by the Bunun people of Taiwan. ... Babuzah is an extinct language of a tribe of Babuza people on Taiwan (see Taiwanese aborigines). ... Thao is the language of the Thao, a tribe of indigenous people on Taiwan (see Taiwanese aborigines). ... Saisiyat is the language of the Saisiyat, a tribe of indigenous people on Taiwan (see Taiwanese aborigines). ... Pazeh (Pazih) is the language of the Pazeh, a tribe of indigenous people on Taiwan (see Taiwanese aborigines). ... The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages used by some 351 million speakers. ...

Few attempts have been made to identify the origins of the Formosan tribes, allowing a prevailing assumption that they came from the Chinese mainland. The generally-accepted paradigm has to assume that the proto-Austronesians left the Chinese mainland, leaving no traces, and that the immediately ancestral proto-Malayo-Polynesian speakers later left Taiwan, also leaving no traces.

The Basay, Kavalan and Amis of Eastern Formosa share a homeland motif that has them coming originally from an island called “Sinasay” or “Sanasay” Paul Jen-kuei Li 2004 . The Amis, in particular (now the largest extant Formosan language group), consider they came from the East, and were treated by the Puyuma, amongst whom they settled, then in a minority, as a subservient group George Taylor 1888.

Whether Taiwan/Formosa was a hostland or a homeland is still very much open to debate Mutsu Hsui, Shu-Juo Chen 2004

Formosan classification II

Austronesian

• Atayalic
• Tsou-Malayo-Polynesian
  • Rukai-Tsouic
  • Paiwan-Malayo-Polynesian
    • Paiwanic linkage: Amic, Bunun, Kulunic, Paiwan, Puyuma, Saisiyat, Thaoic
    • Malayo-Polynesian (see below)

Tsou is the language of the Tsou, a tribe of indigenous people on Taiwan (see Taiwanese aborigines). ... The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages used by some 351 million speakers. ... Rukai is the language of the Rukai, a tribe of indigenous people on Taiwan (see Taiwanese aborigines. ... Tsou is the language of the Tsou, a tribe of indigenous people on Taiwan (see Taiwanese aborigines). ... Paiwan is a native language of Taiwan, spoken by the Paiwan people, one tribe of the Taiwanese aborigines. ... The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages used by some 351 million speakers. ... In linguistics, a linkage is a group of undoubtedly related languages for whom no proto-language can be reconstructed. ... Amis is the language of the Amis or Ami, a tribe of indigenous people on Taiwan (see Taiwanese aborigines). ... The Bunun language (布農話) is spoken by the Bunun people of Taiwan. ... Paiwan is a native language of Taiwan, spoken by the Paiwan people, one tribe of the Taiwanese aborigines. ... Puyuma is the language of Puyuma, a tribe of indigenous people on Taiwan (see Taiwanese aborigines). ... Saisiyat is the language of the Saisiyat, a tribe of indigenous people on Taiwan (see Taiwanese aborigines). ... Thao is the language of the Thao, a tribe of indigenous people on Taiwan (see Taiwanese aborigines). ... The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages used by some 351 million speakers. ...

Malayo-Polynesian classification

Quotations to Wouk & Ross (2002).
Malayo-Polynesian Austronesian redirects here. ... The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages used by some 351 million speakers. ...

• Borneo-Philippines, or Outer Western Malayo-Polynesian (Outer Hesperonesian): many small groups of languages, with the most important languages being Tagalog, Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Ilokano, Kapampangan, Malagasy, Tausug
• Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian (possibly dispersed from Sulawesi)
  • Sunda-Sulawesi, or Inner Western Malayo-Polynesian (Inner Hesperonesian): Western Indonesia: Buginese (of Sulawesi), Acehnese, Cham (of Vietnam), Malay (Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam), Indonesian (Indonesia), Iban (of Borneo), Sundanese, Javanese, Balinese; also Chamorro (of Guam), Palauan
  • Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian
    • Central Malayo-Polynesian linkage, or Bandanesian: around the Banda Sea: languages of Timor, Sumba, Flores, and the Malukus
    • Eastern Malayo-Polynesian, or "Melanesian", if this term is redefined to subsume Micronesian and Polynesian
      • South Halmahera-Geelvink Bay: languages of Halmahera and western New Guinea, the most important being Taba and Biak
      • Oceanic: A well-supported family that includes all the Austronesian languages of Melanesia from Jayapura east, Polynesia, and most of Micronesia

The Borneo-Philippines languages (or Outer Hesperonesian or Outer Western Malayo-Polynesian languages) are a branch of the Austronesian family which include the languages of the Philippines, much of Borneo, the northern peninsula of Sulawesi, and Madagascar, as outlined in Wouk and Ross (2002). ... Tagalog (pronounced ) is one of the major languages of the Republic of the Philippines. ... Cebuano, also known as Sinugboanon, is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 20,000,000 people (according to Ethnologue). ... Hiligaynon language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator Hiligaynon (or Ilonggo) is an Austronesian language spoken in Western Visayas in the Philippines. ... To view the Ilokano edition of this Wikipedia article, select from the in other languages Ilokano (variants: Ilocano, Iluko, Iloco, and Iloko) is the third most-spoken language of the Republic of the Philippines. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Tausug is spoken in Sulu province in the Philippines. ... The Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian languages are a branch of the Austronesian family that are thought to have dispersed from a possible homeland in Sulawesi. ... Sulawesi (formerly more commonly known as Celebes, IPA: a Portuguese-originated form of the name) is one of the four larger Sunda Islands of Indonesia and is situated between Borneo and the Maluku Islands. ... The Sunda-Sulawesi languages (or Inner Hesperonesian or Inner Western Malayo-Polynesian languages) are a branch of the Austronesian family which include the languages of Sulawesi and the Greater Sunda Islands, as well as a few outliers such as Charmorro and Palauan, as outlined in Wouk and Ross (2002). ... Buginese (locally Basa Ugi, elsewhere also Bahasa Bugis, Bugis, Bugi, De) is the language spoken by about four million people, mainly in the southern part of Celebes (Sulawesi), in Indonesia. ... Sulawesi (formerly more commonly known as Celebes, IPA: a Portuguese-originated form of the name) is one of the four larger Sunda Islands of Indonesia and is situated between Borneo and the Maluku Islands. ... The Achinese (also Acehnese) a people in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam in Indonesia. ... This article is about the Chav people of Asia. ... Not to be confused with the Malayalam language, spoken in India. ... Ibans doing the ngajat A Modern Iban Longhouse in Kapit Division IBAN is also an acronym for International Bank Account Number The Ibans were formerly known during the colonial period by the British as Sea Dayaks and are a branch of the Dayak peoples of Borneo. ... Sundanese (Basa Sunda, literally language of Sunda) is the language of about 27 million people from the western third of Java or about 15% of the Indonesian population. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Balinese is the language spoken by people in the island of Bali, Indonesia. ... Chamorro (Chamoru in Chamorro) is the native language of the Chamorro or Chamoru of the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam. ... Palauan is the language spoken on Palau. ... The family of Central Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages is a subgroup of the Malayo-Polynesian languages. ... The Central Malayo-Polynesian (CMP) languages are a proposed branch of Austronesian languages. ... Bandasee The Banda Sea is the sea of the South Moluccas in Indonesia, technically part of the Pacific Ocean but separated from it by hundreds of islands, as well as the Halmahera and Ceram Seas. ... Timor is an island at the south end of the Malay Archipelago, divided between the independent state of East Timor, and West Timor, part of the Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara with the surface of 11,883 sq mi (30,777 km²). The name is a variant of timur... The Lesser Sunda Islands; Sumba is in the center Sumba is an island in Indonesia, and is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands. ... Map of Flores Island Flores (Portuguese for flowers) is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, an island arc with an estimated area of 14,300 km² extending east from the Java island of Indonesia. ... This page is about the geography and history of the island group in Indonesia — for the political entities encompassing the islands, see Maluku (Indonesian province) and North Maluku. ... The family of Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages is a subgroup of the Central Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages. ... The South Halmahera–West New Guinea (SHWNG) languages are the branch Austronesian languages most closely related to Oceanic. ... Halmahera (also Jilolo or Gilolo) is the largest island in the Maluku Islands. ... Taba (also known as East Makian or Makian Dalam) is an Austronesian language spoken in the northern islands of the Maluku province of Indonesia by about 20,000 people. ... The Oceanic languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, containing approximately 450 languages. ... map of Melanesia Melanesia (from Greek: μέλας black, νῆσος island) is a subregion of Oceania extending from the western side of the West Pacific to the Arafura Sea, north and northeast of Australia. ... A workers mural in Jayapura, Indonesia Jayapura City (Indonesian: Kota Jayapura) is the capital of Papua province, Indonesia, on the island of New Guinea. ... Carving from the ridgepole of a Māori house, ca 1840 Polynesia (from Greek: πολύς many, νῆσος island) is a large grouping of over 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. ...

Lexicon

The Austronesian language family is established by the linguistic Comparative method on the basis of cognate sets, sets of words similar in sound and meaning which can be shown to be descended from the same ancestral word in Proto-Austronesian according to regular rules. Some cognate sets are very stable. The word for eye in many Austronesian languages is mata (from the most northerly Austronesian languages, Formosan languages such as Bunun and Amis all the way south to Maori). Other words are harder to reconstruct. The word for two is also stable, in that it appears over the entire range of the Austronesian family, but the forms (e.g. Bunun rusya, lusha; Amis tusa; Maori tua, rua) require some linguistic expertise to recognise. The Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database gives word lists (coded for cognacy) for approximately 500 Austronesian languages. For the journal, see Linguistics (journal). ... The comparative method (in comparative linguistics) is a technique used by linguists to demonstrate genetic relationships between languages. ... Look up cognate in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The Formosan languages are a group of Austronesian languages spoken 2% of the population of Taiwan, almost exclusively aboriginals. ... The Bunun language (布農話) is spoken by the Bunun people of Taiwan. ... Amis is the language of the Amis or Ami, a tribe of indigenous people on Taiwan (see Taiwanese aborigines). ... Māori (or Maori) is a language spoken by the native peoples of New Zealand and the Cook Islands. ...

Major languages

Main article: List of major and official Austronesian languages

See also

• Austronesia
• Austronesian people
• List of Austronesian languages
• List of Austronesian countries by linguality

The Austronesian languages are a family of languages widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia. ... The Austronesian people are a population group in Oceania and Southeast Asia who speak or had ancestors who spoke one of the Austronesian languages. ... Below is a list of countries that are home to Austronesian languages along with the most notable languages in each country. ...

References

• Bellwood, Peter (July 1991). "The Austronesian Dispersal and the Origin of Languages". Scientific American 265: 88–93. 
• Bellwood, Peter (1997). Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian archipelago. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.
• Bellwood, Peter (1998). "Taiwan and the Prehistory of the Austronesians-speaking Peoples". Review of Archaeology 18: 39–48. 
• Bellwood, Peter; Fox, James; & Tryon, Darrell (1995). The Austronesians: Historical and comparative perspectives. Department of Anthropology, Australian National University. ISBN 0-7315-2132-3. 
• Bellwood, Peter & Alicia Sanchez-Mazas (June 2005). "Human Migrations in Continental East Asia and Taiwan: Genetic, Linguistic, and Archaeological Evidence". Current Anthropology 46:3: 480–485. 
• Blench, Roger (2004). Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? (PDF) Paper for the Symposium : Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. Geneva, June 10-13.
• Blundell, David. "Austronesian Dispersal". Newsletter of Chinese Ethnology 35: 1–26. 
• Blust, Robert (1985). "The Austronesian Homeland: A Linguistic Perspective". Asian Perspectives 20: 46–67. 
• Blust, R. (1999). "Subgrouping, circularity and extinction: some issues in Austronesian comparative linguistics" in E. Zeitoun & P.J.K Li (Ed.) Selected papers from the Eighth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics (pp. 31-94). Taipei: Academia Sinica.
• Comrie, Bernard. (2001). Languages of the world. In Mark Aronoff and Janie Rees-Miller, eds.: The Handbook of Linguistics, 19-42. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Diamond, Jared M (2000). Taiwan's gift to the world. (PDF). Nature 403:709-710.
• Fox, James J. (2004).Current Developments in Comparative Austronesian Studies (PDF). Paper prepared for Symposium Austronesia Pascasarjana Linguististik dan Kajian Budaya. Universitas Udayana, Bali 19-20 August.
• Fuller, Peter (2002). Reading the Full Picture. Asia Pacific Research. Canberra, Australia: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies. Retrieved on July 28, 2005.
• Homepage of linguist Dr. Lawrence Reid. Retrieved on July 28, 2005.
• Li, Paul Jen-kuei. (2006). The Internal Relationships of Formosan Languages (PDF). Paper presented at Tenth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics (ICAL). 17-20 January 2006. Puerto Princesa City, Palawan, Philippines.
• Lynch, John, Malcolm Ross and Terry Crowley, The Oceanic languages. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2002.
• Melton T., Clifford S., Martinson J., Batzer M., & Stoneking M. 1998. Genetic evidence for the proto-Austronesian homeland in Asia: mtDNA and nuclear DNA variation in Taiwanese aboriginal tribes. (PDF) American Journal of Human Genetics, 63:1807–1823.
• Peiros, Ilia (2004). Austronesian: What linguists know and what they believe they know. Geneva, June 10-13.: Paper presented at the workshop on Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan
• Ross, Malcolm & Andrew Pawley (1993). "Austronesian historical linguistics and culture history". Annual Review of Anthropology 22: 425–459. doi:10.1146/annurev.an.22.100193.002233. ISSN 0084-6570. OCLC 1783647. 
• Ross, John (2002). "Final words: research themes in the history and typology of western Austronesian languages" in Wouk, Fay & Malcolm Ross (Eds.) The history and typology of Western Austronesian voice systems (pp. 451-474). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics
• Sagart, Laurent. (2002). Sino-Tibeto-Austronesian: An updated and improved argument (PDF). Paper presented at Ninth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics (ICAL9). 8-11 January 2002. Canberra, Australia.
• Sapir, Edward. (1968). Time perspective in aboriginal American culture: a study in method. In Selected writings of Edward Sapir in language, culture and personality (D.G. Mandelbaum ed.), 389- 467. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Terrell, John Edward (December 2004). "Introduction: 'Austronesia' and the great Austronesian migration". World Archaeology 36:4: 586–591. 
• Thurgood, Graham (1999). From Ancient Cham to Modern Dialects. Two Thousand Years of Language Contact and Change. Oceanic Linguistics Special Publications No. 28. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.
• Trejaut JA, Kivisild T, Loo JH, Lee CL, He CL, et al. (2005) Traces of archaic mitochondrial lineages persist in Austronesian-speaking Formosan populations. PLoS Biol 3(8): e247.
• Wouk, Fay and Malcolm Ross ,eds. (2002), The history and typology of western Austronesian voice systems. Pacific Linguistics. Canberra: Australian National University.

John Lynch is a linguist specializing in Oceanic languages. ... Malcolm Ross is a linguist and professor at the Australian National University. ... Terry Crowley (1953-2005) was a linguist specializing in Oceanic languages. ... Malcolm Ross is a linguist and professor at the Australian National University. ... A digital object identifier (or DOI) is a standard for persistently identifying a piece of intellectual property on a digital network and associating it with related data, the metadata, in a structured extensible way. ... ISSN, or International Standard Serial Number, is the unique eight-digit number applied to a periodical publication including electronic serials. ... The Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) was founded in 1967 and originally named the Ohio College Library Center. ... Malcolm Ross is a linguist and professor at the Australian National University. ...

Further reading

• Sagart, Laurent, Roger Blench, and Alicia Sanchez-Nazas (Eds.) {2004). The peopling of East Asia: Putting Together Archaeology, Linguistics and Genetics. London: RoutledgeCurzon. ISBN 0-415-32242-1.
• Cohen, E. M. K. (1999). Fundaments of Austronesian roots and etymology. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. ISBN 0858834367
• Tryon, D. T., & Tsuchida, S. (1995). Comparative Austronesian dictionary: an introduction to Austronesian studies. Trends in linguistics, 10. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 110127296
• Pawley, A., & Ross, M. (1994). Austronesian terminologies: contiunity and change. Canberra, Australia: Dept. of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University. ISBN 0858834243
• Blust, R. A. (1983). Lexical reconstruction and semantic reconstruction: the case of the Austronesian "house" words. [Hawaii: R. Blust.

External links

• Ethnologue report for Austronesian.
• Basic vocabulary database for over 450 Austronesian Languages.
• Summer Institute of Linguistics site showing languages (Austronesian and Papuan) of Papua New Guinea.
• Austronesian Language Resources (defunct? moved?) (@ archive.org)
• Spreadsheet of 1600+ Austronesian and Papuan number names and systems - ongoing study to determine their relationships and distribution