Malayo-Polynesian languages
The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of languages of the Austronesian family. The subgroup is widespread across the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with some members spoken on mainland Asia. Malagasy, spoken in Madagascar, is an exception.
The Malayo-Polynesian languages tend to reduplication (repetition of a word or part of it) to express the plural and have a simple phonology, that is, the texts have a high frequency of few sounds. Most do not have consonant clusters (like [str] or [mpl]) and have a small number of vowels, five being most common.
Classification
Blust (2008)
Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database 2008, is based on the reliability that supports the unit of each group and is indicated in parentheses with a percentage, so the Malayo-Polynesian languages would have a percentage of reliability 100% and is divided into the following groups:
- Sulu-filipino group (75%)
- Filipino (100%) in the Philippines and North of Célebes. The elders are the Tagalo language and the baboon.
- Tagalog language (official Philippines, unofficial immigrants and descendants of immigrants from the Philippines in Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Guam, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Spain)
- Sama-bajaw (100%): Native languages of the Sulu Archipelago.
- Filipino (100%) in the Philippines and North of Célebes. The elders are the Tagalo language and the baboon.
- Indo-melanesian group (98%)
- Borneano (65%)
- Gran Barito: In Borneo and Madagascar. The Malagasy language is the most spoken.
- Sabahano: In Sabah (Malaysia)
- Malay-nuclear polynesium (75%)
- Malayo-sumbawano (60%)
- Bali-Maláyico: In Indonesia and Malaysia, e.g. the Malay, Indonesian, Javanese and Sondanese.
- Moklen-chemic: In Indochina and Aceh, as the English language.
- Tamanic: In the mbaloh ethnic group in Kalimantan (Borneo).
- Sulawesi-poliness (65%) (East Indonesia and Pacific Islands)
- Sangir-Minahasano (80%): To the North of Célebes.
- Southern Sulawesi (100%), such as the buginés, south of Célebes.
- Celebo-poliness (80%)
- Celébicus (100%): It is the largest group in Célebes.
- Great Malay-central-Eastern Polynesian (85%)
- Norsumatrano-islands barrier: To the North of Sumatra and to the barrier islands of the West coast of Sumatra.
- Chamorro of Guam and Northern Mariana Islands (Micronesia).
- Palauano from Palaos.
- Malay-central-Eastern Polynesia (80%)
- Sumba-Flores (100%) in part of the smaller islands of the Sonda.
- Malay-central-oriental nuclear
- Central Moluccas (54%) in the Molucas Islands.
- Timor-Babar, south of the Moluccas and in Timor. The Tetun language is official in East Timor.
- Eastern Malay-poliness (80%)
- Halmahera-Cenderawasih, from South Halmahera to West Guinea.
- Oceanin Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia.
- Micronesio
- Fiyiano-poliness
- Polynesian
- Hawaiian language (Hawai)
- Maori (New Zealand and Cook Islands)
- rapanui (Isla de Pascua y Isla Salas y Gómez)
- Samoan (Samoa, American Samoa and Tokelau)
- Tahitian (French Polynesia)
- tongano (Tonga and American Samoa)
- tuvaluano (Tuvalu and Fiyi)
- Polynesian
- Malayo-sumbawano (60%)
- Borneano (65%)
Wouk and Ross (2002)
Following Wouk & Ross (2002), are divided into two groups:
- Borneo-Philippines or Malay-West Polynesian Outer
- Malay-nuclear polynesium
- Sonda-Célebes or Malayo-polinesio western interior
- Malay-central-Eastern Polynesian Languages
- MP Centrales, it consists of some 160 languages that are spoken mainly in Indonesia.
- Bima-Sumba
- Mar Banda
- Timor
- Central Moluccas
- Southern-central moulds
- Aru
- Eastern MP
- Tagalog language (official Philippines, unofficial immigrants and descendants of immigrants from the Philippines in Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Guam, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Spain)
- Southern haemahera – New Western Guinea
- Oceanic, with about a million speakers. It includes the languages of Micronesia such as Nauruano, sama and chamorro, and Polynesian languages such as Hawaiian, Maori, rapanui, Samoan, Tahitian, Tongano and Tuvaluan. All these languages have official status in their respective territories
- Hawaiian language (Hawai)
- Maori (New Zealand and Cook Islands)
- rapanui (Isla de Pascua y Isla Salas y Gómez)
- Samoan (Samoa, American Samoa and Tokelau)
- Tahitian (French Polynesia)
- tongano (Tonga and American Samoa)
- tuvaluano (Tuvalu and Fiyi)
- MP Centrales, it consists of some 160 languages that are spoken mainly in Indonesia.
Linguistic description
Phonology
The Malayo-Polynesian languages show great diversity due to the extension that the language family has reached, the Malayo-Polynesian subfamily is larger than any other language family in the world, exceeding 1200 languages. The first reconstruction of Proto-Malayo-Polynesian is due to Dempwolff (1934), who did not take into account the additional evidence from the Formosan languages. Dempwoff's reconstruction was reviewed by Dyen (1965, 1971), Tsuchida (1976), Dahl (1976, 1981), Wolff (1988), Blust (1990) and Ross (1992) according to the latter the phonological system is:
bilabial dental/alveolar palatal ensure that uvular glotal Nose ♪ ♪ * oclusive *p, *b *t, d *Z []] ♪k, ♪ ♪ * cold ♪ *j [(y)] ♪ approximate ♪ ♪ liquid ♪ ♪
This system lacks some of the retroflexes and affricates that Ross reconstructs for Proto-Austronesian.
Lexical comparison
The reconstructed numerals for different branches of Austronesian languages are:
GLOSA Malaysian and Polynesian languages PROTO-AUSTRONESIO PROTO-FILIPINO PROTO-BORNEANO PROTO-MPCENTRAL PROTO-OCEAN PROTO-
MALAYO-
POLINESIO1 * apostles ♪ ♪ *sa-kai~
♪ta-sa♪ that...
♪♪ that...
♪2 ♪ ♪ dua ♪ dua ♪ Rua *duha *duśa 3 ♪ *t transformation ♪ ♪ ♪ *teuu 4 * offset * transformationpat *(ambi)pat *pat ♪ *śepat 5 ♪ * * * * 6 * coina coinn * ♪ * ISSNm ♪ 7 ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ 8 ♪walúú *valu ♪walu ♪walu ♪walu 9 ♪ yeah ♪ ♪ ♪ Siwa ♪ Siwa *śiwa 10 ♪ ♪ *sa-(ża)-puluq *-puluq *sa-puluq