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{{Infobox Language family|name=Austronesian|altname=|region=Maritime Southeast Asia, Oceania, Madagascar, Taiwan; although links with other families have been proposed, none of these has received mainstream acceptance|child1=[Formosan languages (composed of many branches)|child2=Malayo-Polynesian languages|iso2=map|map=Map showing the distribution of language families (Austronesian languages are coloured in soft pink)-->

The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Maritime Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia. It is on par with Indo-European languages, Afro-Asiatic languages and Uralic languages as one of the best-established ancient language families. The name Austronesian comes from Latin auster "south wind" plus Greek language 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 language and the Chamic languages, are Autochthonous language to mainland Asia. Many Austronesian languages are small, spoken by only a few people, but the List of Austronesian languages are spoken by millions and tens of millions of people. Some Austronesian languages are Official language (see the List of Austronesian languages).

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 language, Rapa Nui language, and Malagasy (spoken on Madagascar) are the geographic outliers of the Austronesian family.

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 languages branch, sometimes called Extra-Formosan.

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 Taiwan. On this island the deepest divisions in Austronesian are found, among the families of the native Formosan languages. According to , the Formosan languages form nine of the ten primary branches of the Austronesian language family. Bernard Comrie (2001:28) noted this when he wrote:

At least since Edward 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. a recent dissenting analysis, see .

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., ) 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 . It is believed that this migration began around 6,000 years ago . 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:

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 .

Distant relations Genealogical links have been proposed between Austronesian and various families of Southeast Asia in what is generally called an Austric languages phylum (linguistics). 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:

That is, in the classification below Tai-Kadai would be a branch of the Borneo-Philippines languages. However, none of these wider proposals have gained general acceptance in the linguistic community.

It has also been proposed that Japanese language may be a distant relative of the Austronesian language family; however, this is rejected by all mainstream linguistic specialists. The evidence for any sort of connection between Japanese and Austronesian 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. 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 speakers of proto-Austronesian and proto-Japonic languages, it is likely to have been one of simple cultural exchange without significant ethnic intermixture. In fact, genetic analyses consistently show that the Ryukyuans of the Ryukyu Islands between Taiwan and the main islands of Japan are genetically more dissimilar to the Taiwanese aborigines than are the Japanese people people of the main Japanese islands, which suggests that if there was any interaction between proto-Austronesian and proto-Japonic, it probably occurred somewhere on the East Asian continent prior to the introduction of the Austronesian languages to Taiwan and the Japonic languages to Japan, or at least prior to the hypothetical extinction of Austronesian languages from mainland China and the introduction of Japonic to Japan.

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 . The first group is characterized by relatively strong verb-initial word order and Austronesian alignment. 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 (linguistics) within linguistics.

The Austronesian languages tend to use reduplication (repetition of all or part of a word, such as wiki-wiki), and, like many East Asia and Southeast Asian languages, have highly restrictive phonotactics, with small numbers of phonemes and predominantly consonant-vowel syllables.

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 continuum, 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.

Formosan classification I

The seminal article regarding the subgroupings of Formosan (and by extension, the top-level structure of Austronesian) is . 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

Formosan classification II Austronesian

Malayo-Polynesian classification Quotations to .
Malayo-Polynesian languages

Lexicon The Austronesian language family is established by the Linguistics Comparative method on the basis of Cognate, sets of words similar in sound and meaning which can be shown to be descended from the same ancestral word in Proto-Austronesian language 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 language and Amis language all the way south to Maori language). 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.

Major languages See also

References

Further reading

External links

{{Infobox Language family|name=Austronesian|altname=|region=Maritime Southeast Asia, Oceania, Madagascar, Taiwan; although links with other families have been proposed, none of these has received mainstream acceptance|child1=[Formosan languages (composed of many branches)|child2=Malayo-Polynesian languages|iso2=map|map=Map showing the distribution of language families (Austronesian languages are coloured in soft pink)-->

The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Maritime Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia. It is on par with Indo-European languages, Afro-Asiatic languages and Uralic languages as one of the best-established ancient language families. The name Austronesian comes from Latin auster "south wind" plus Greek language 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 language and the Chamic languages, are Autochthonous language to mainland Asia. Many Austronesian languages are small, spoken by only a few people, but the List of Austronesian languages are spoken by millions and tens of millions of people. Some Austronesian languages are Official language (see the List of Austronesian languages).

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 language, Rapa Nui language, and Malagasy (spoken on Madagascar) are the geographic outliers of the Austronesian family.

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 languages branch, sometimes called Extra-Formosan.

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 Taiwan. On this island the deepest divisions in Austronesian are found, among the families of the native Formosan languages. According to , the Formosan languages form nine of the ten primary branches of the Austronesian language family. Bernard Comrie (2001:28) noted this when he wrote:

At least since Edward 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. a recent dissenting analysis, see .

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., ) 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 . It is believed that this migration began around 6,000 years ago . 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:

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 .

Distant relations Genealogical links have been proposed between Austronesian and various families of Southeast Asia in what is generally called an Austric languages phylum (linguistics). 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:

That is, in the classification below Tai-Kadai would be a branch of the Borneo-Philippines languages. However, none of these wider proposals have gained general acceptance in the linguistic community.

It has also been proposed that Japanese language may be a distant relative of the Austronesian language family; however, this is rejected by all mainstream linguistic specialists. The evidence for any sort of connection between Japanese and Austronesian 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. 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 speakers of proto-Austronesian and proto-Japonic languages, it is likely to have been one of simple cultural exchange without significant ethnic intermixture. In fact, genetic analyses consistently show that the Ryukyuans of the Ryukyu Islands between Taiwan and the main islands of Japan are genetically more dissimilar to the Taiwanese aborigines than are the Japanese people people of the main Japanese islands, which suggests that if there was any interaction between proto-Austronesian and proto-Japonic, it probably occurred somewhere on the East Asian continent prior to the introduction of the Austronesian languages to Taiwan and the Japonic languages to Japan, or at least prior to the hypothetical extinction of Austronesian languages from mainland China and the introduction of Japonic to Japan.

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 . The first group is characterized by relatively strong verb-initial word order and Austronesian alignment. 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 (linguistics) within linguistics.

The Austronesian languages tend to use reduplication (repetition of all or part of a word, such as wiki-wiki), and, like many East Asia and Southeast Asian languages, have highly restrictive phonotactics, with small numbers of phonemes and predominantly consonant-vowel syllables.

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 continuum, 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.

Formosan classification I

The seminal article regarding the subgroupings of Formosan (and by extension, the top-level structure of Austronesian) is . 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

Formosan classification II Austronesian

Malayo-Polynesian classification Quotations to .
Malayo-Polynesian languages

Lexicon The Austronesian language family is established by the Linguistics Comparative method on the basis of Cognate, sets of words similar in sound and meaning which can be shown to be descended from the same ancestral word in Proto-Austronesian language 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 language and Amis language all the way south to Maori language). 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.

Major languages See also

References

Further reading

External links



Austronesian languages - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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.

Category:Austronesian languages - Wikimedia Commons
Media in category "Austronesian languages" The following 6 files are in this category, out of 6 total.

Austronesian languages definition of Austronesian languages in the ...
Encyclopedia article about Austronesian languages. Information about Austronesian languages in the Columbia Encyclopedia, Computer Desktop Encyclopedia, computing dictionary ...

UKARG events
UKARG. 2nd conference on Austronesian Languages & Linguistics (ALL2) 2-3 June 2006, St Catherine's College, Oxford . CONFERENCE OVERVIEW . ALL2 is a two day conference on all ...

2nd Conference on Austronesian Languages and Linguistics
1 UK Austronesian Research Group 2 nd Conference on Austronesian Languages and Linguistics St Catherine's College, Oxford 2-3 June 2006 Program Friday 2 June 9.15-9.30 Welcome ...

Austronesian languages - Hutchinson encyclopedia article about ...
Hutchinson encyclopedia article about Austronesian languages. Austronesian languages. Information about Austronesian languages in the Hutchinson encyclopedia. austronesian language

Austronesian languages -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia
Britannica online encyclopedia article on Austronesian languages:family of languages spoken in most of the Indonesian Archipelago; all of the Philippines, Madagascar, and the ...

ALL2: 2nd Conference on Austronesian Languages and Linguistics
ALL2: 2nd Conference on Austronesian Languages and Linguistics. A two day conference of speakers. Date: 2 June 2006 Time: 9:15 AM. Finishes: 3 June 2006 Time: 5:00 PM

ALL3: 3rd Conference on Austronesian Languages and Linguistics ...
ALL3: 3rd Conference on Austronesian Languages and Linguistics. A two day conference of speakers. Date: 21 September 2007 Time: 9:00 AM. Finishes: 22 September 2007 Time: 5:30 PM

Austronesian Languages - MSN Encarta
Austronesian Languages, formerly also referred to as Malayo-Polynesian languages, one of the worlds largest language families, both in terms of...

 

Austronesian Languages



 
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