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The Austronesian peoples, sometimes referred to as Austronesian-speaking peoples, are a large group of peoples in Taiwan, Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Micronesia, coastal New Guinea, Island Melanesia, Polynesia, and Madagascar that speak Austronesian languages.
- Overview
- Major subgroups
Given the size of the Austronesian family, the subgrouping of the languages is a matter of some importance, bearing on, among other things, the determination of the Austronesian homeland. Until the 1930s the branches of Austronesian were customarily identified with purely geographic labels: Indonesian, Melanesian, Micronesian, and Polynesian. The inadequacy of this subdivision is apparent; Polynesian, for example, is known to encompass not only the languages of Polynesia but also Polynesian Outlier languages of both Melanesia and Micronesia. Moreover, each of the other geographically defined groups turns out to be a heterogeneous collection of languages that belong to more than one linguistically defined group.
The first breakthrough in the subgrouping of the Austronesian languages was made by Dempwolff in the second volume of his distinguished trilogy, where he concluded that the languages of Polynesia and most of those of Melanesia and Micronesia share a number of innovative features that are most plausibly attributed to changes in a single protolanguage, which he named Urmelanesisch (Proto-Melanesian) and which is known today as Proto-Oceanic. The Oceanic hypothesis maintains that all Austronesian languages east of a line that runs through Indonesian New Guinea at approximately 138° E longitude—except for Palauan and Chamorro of western Micronesia—are descended from a single protolanguage spoken many generations after the initial breakup of Proto-Austronesian itself.
Given the size of the Austronesian family, the subgrouping of the languages is a matter of some importance, bearing on, among other things, the determination of the Austronesian homeland. Until the 1930s the branches of Austronesian were customarily identified with purely geographic labels: Indonesian, Melanesian, Micronesian, and Polynesian. The inadequacy of this subdivision is apparent; Polynesian, for example, is known to encompass not only the languages of Polynesia but also Polynesian Outlier languages of both Melanesia and Micronesia. Moreover, each of the other geographically defined groups turns out to be a heterogeneous collection of languages that belong to more than one linguistically defined group.
The first breakthrough in the subgrouping of the Austronesian languages was made by Dempwolff in the second volume of his distinguished trilogy, where he concluded that the languages of Polynesia and most of those of Melanesia and Micronesia share a number of innovative features that are most plausibly attributed to changes in a single protolanguage, which he named Urmelanesisch (Proto-Melanesian) and which is known today as Proto-Oceanic. The Oceanic hypothesis maintains that all Austronesian languages east of a line that runs through Indonesian New Guinea at approximately 138° E longitude—except for Palauan and Chamorro of western Micronesia—are descended from a single protolanguage spoken many generations after the initial breakup of Proto-Austronesian itself.
May 24, 2024 · Austronesian languages, family of languages spoken in most of the Indonesian archipelago; all of the Philippines, Madagascar, and the island groups of the Central and South Pacific (except for Australia and much of New Guinea); much of Malaysia; and scattered areas of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Taiwan.
Today, Austronesian-speaking peoples comprise most or all of the indigenous populations of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Madagascar.
In ethnolinguistic terms, the Pacific islanders of Oceania are divided into two different ethnic classifications: Austronesian-speaking peoples — Austronesian peoples who speak the Oceanian languages, numbering about 2.3 million in population, who occupy Polynesia, Micronesia, and most of the smaller islands of Melanesia.
The Austronesian languages form a single and relatively close-knit family, similar in its degree of internal diversity and time depth to other major language families such as Austroasiatic, Uto-Aztecan and Indo-European.
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The Austronesian peoples, sometimes referred to as Austronesian-speaking peoples, are a large group of peoples in Taiwan, Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Micronesia, coastal New Guinea, Island Melanesia, Polynesia, and Madagascar that speak Austronesian languages.
