Austronesian Languages

The Austronesian languages are, with the 4 branches of the Langues formosanes, one of the branches which train the family of the Langues austronésiennes, spoken languages of the Indian Ocean with the Pacific Ocean, while passing by the Southeast Asia.

At the beginning, this term, appeared in first half of the 19th century, was used to indicate the whole of the languages of this family, by including the languages of the people there known as Mélanésie NS. But since the Sixties, by underlining narrow internal affinities between the languages of the world Indonésien of Southeast Asia and those revolving around the Polynesian core of Oceania, certain authors isolated, wrongly, this one inside a vast subset, being part itself of the qualified supra-family of austronésien. Thereafter, with the development of linguistic research, the practice to describe as Austronesian all languages of this family returned, with only the exception of those more antiquated of the island of Formosa or Taiwan, called formosanes.

On the origin of the Languages formosanes, the other group of the languages austronésiennes, cf this article.

As of 1706, the Dutch philologist Hadrian Reland concerns the resemblances between languages as distant as the Malgache, the Malayan and the futunien, starting from the lists of words collected with Futuna by the Dutchman Jacob the Mayor. The existence of a family which will be named later Austronesian is established by Lorenzo Hervas there Panduro in its Catalogo delle ling . In 1834, it is Wilhelm von Humboldt which baptizes the future family of the languages austronésiennes, extended to the Easter Island, Austronesian in Über die Kawi-Sprache auf der Insel Java (1836 - 39, posthumous publication). The Kawi was the old literary language of Java. This work from now on is regarded as innovative out of linguistic matter.

Comparative table of various Austronesian languages

Note:
a) These examples are given as an indication and require more thorough investigations on the level of each language for a really scientific use.
b) For the transcription of the language merina, in order to facilitate the reading of it, we replaced the “O” of use with “U” of the pronunciation; in the same way, we replaced “there the” final one who does not answer any phonetic need with a simple “I”. It is also advisable to remember that because of the stressing on the penultimate syllable, the pronunciation of the final vowel of the merina is generally very weak, even inaudible.
c) It remains in spite of very that the orthography used for each language is overall here that of the everyday usage which always does not reflect the true pronunciation, from a phonetic point of view.
d) We put between bracket all particular demonstrations, indicating, either an affix, or attested an in the past form, or a term whose direction is close but nonidentical to the entry indicated, or finally a loan which has nothing to do with the term suitable for the language.
e) The “old Javanese” corresponds here to the old demonstrations of the language, revealed by the old manuscripts until the XIXe century. The modern forms are sometimes a little different.
f) The proto-malayo-Polynesian corresponds to a hypothetical reconstitution (*) obtained by comparing the various languages integrated in this subdivision, other than the more antiquated languages of the level “austronésien” like those of the north of Taiwan-Formosa. The writing is phonetic here (the `Q' corresponding for example to the “glottal stop”) but without being really homogenized.

Bibliographical indications:
Darrell T. Tryon, ed.
- Comparative Austronesian Dictionary. Year Introduction to Austronesian Studies . Berlin: Sheep of Gruyter, 1995.
Otto Christian Dahl
- Malagasy and Maanjan. A linguistic comparison . Oslo: Egede Instituttet, 1951
- “The subdivision of Barito and the place of the Madagascan”, Acta Orientalia , 38,1977, pp. 77-134.

List and classification

ethnologue.com counts 1.248 Austronesian languages (on a total of 1.268 languages austronésiennes), which are distributed in the following groups:

  • Bali - Sasak (3)

  • Barito of Borneo (27)
  • Exchange-Eastern (708)
  • Chamorro of Guam (1)
  • Gayo of the north of Sumatra (1)
  • Javanese (5)
  • Kayan-Murik of Borneo (17)
  • ic Lampung of the south of Sumatra (9)
  • Land Dayak of Borneo (16)
  • Madurais (2)
  • Malaïque (70)
  • Méso-Filipino (61)
  • North-Filipino (72)
  • North-western (84)
  • Paluan (1)
  • Punan-Nibong of Borneo (2)
  • Sama-Bajaw (9)
  • Southern Mindanao (5)
  • South-Filipino (23)
  • Sulawesi in (114)
  • Sumatrien (12)
  • Sundanais in Java (2)
and 4 not classified languages:

  • Gorap of the Moluques

  • Hukumina of Moluques
  • Katabaga of the Filipino
  • Rejang of the south of Sumatra.

In seeing the list in this other article.

See also: Languages formosanes

See too

Internal bonds

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