Western Malayo-Polynesian
Although Western Malayo-Polynesian is a convenient cover term for the Austronesian languages of the
Philippines, western Indonesia (Borneo, Sumatra, Java-Bali-Lombok, Sulawesi), mainland Southeast
Asia, Madagascar, and at least Chamorro and Palauan in western Micronesia, it is in effect a catchall category for
the Malayo-Polynesian languages that do not exhibit any of the innovations characteristic of Central-Eastern
Malayo-Polynesian and may very well contain several primary branches of Malayo-Polynesian. As mentioned
previously, some of the largest and best-known Austronesian languages—including Ilokano, Tagalog, Cebuano,
Malay, Acehnese, Toba Batak, Minangkabau, Sundanese, Javanese, Balinese, Buginese, Makasarese, and
Malagasy—are Western Malayo-Polynesian.
Central Malayo-Polynesian (CMP)
The Central Malayo-Polynesian languages are found throughout much of eastern Indonesia, including the
Lesser Sunda Islands from Sumbawa through Timor, and most of the Moluccas. Many of the changes that define
this linguistic group cover most of the languages but do not reach the geographic extremes, and the group has
therefore been questioned by some scholars. Few of the languages are large or well-known, but those for which
fuller descriptions are available include Manggarai and Ngadha, spoken on the island of Flores; Roti, spoken on
the island of the same name; Tetum, spoken on the island of Timor; and Buruese, spoken on the island of Buru
in the central Moluccas.
South Halmahera–West New Guinea (SHWNG)
This small group of Austronesian languages is found in the northern Moluccan island of Halmahera and in the
Doberai Peninsula (also called Vogelkop or Bird’s Head) of western New Guinea. Preliminary descriptions exist
only for Buli of Halmahera and Numfor-Biak and Waropen of western New Guinea; most of the languages are
known only from short word lists.
Oceanic (OC)
The Oceanic subgroup is the largest and best-defined of all major subgroups in Austronesian. It includes all the
languages of Polynesia, all the languages of Micronesia (except Palauan and Chamorro), and all the Austronesian
languages of Melanesia east of the Mamberamo River in Indonesian New Guinea. Some of the betterknown Oceanic languages are Motu of southeastern New Guinea, Tolai of New Britain, Sa’a of the southeastern
Solomons, Mota of the Banks Islands in northern Vanuatu, Chuukese (Trukese) of Micronesia, Fijian, and
many Polynesian languages, including Tongan, Samoan, Tahitian, Maori, and Hawaiian. Yapese, long
considered unplaceable, now appears to be Oceanic, although its place within Oceanic remains obscure.
Lower-level subgroups
Philippine languages
One of several identifiable lower-level units within these major subgroups is the Philippine group within Western
Malayo-Polynesian. It consists of Yami, spoken on Lan-yü (Botel Tobago) island off the southeastern coast of
Taiwan; almost all the languages of the Philippine Islands; and the Sangiric, Minahasan, and Gorontalic
languages of northern Sulawesi in central Indonesia. The Samalan dialects—spoken by the Sama-Bajau, the socalled sea gypsies in the Sulu Archipelago, and elsewhere in the Philippines—do not appear to belong to the
Philippine group, and their exact linguistic position within the Austronesian family remains to be determined.
Although the term Philippine language or Philippine-type language has been applied to such languages as
Chamorro of the Mariana Islands or the languages of Sabah in northern Borneo, this label is typological rather
than genetic.
Polynesian languages
Perhaps the best-known lower-level subgroup of Austronesian languages is Polynesian, which is remarkable for
its wide geographic spread yet close relationship. The “Polynesian triangle,” defined by Hawaii, Easter Island,
and New Zealand, encloses Polynesia proper, an area about twice the size of the continental United States. In
addition, some 18 Polynesian-speaking societies, the above-mentioned Polynesian Outliers, are found in
Micronesia and Melanesia.
The Polynesian languages generally are divided into two branches, Tongic (Tongan and Niue) and Nuclear
Polynesian (the rest). Nuclear Polynesian in turn contains Samoic-Outlier and Eastern
Polynesian. Maori and Hawaiian, two Eastern Polynesian languages that are separated by some 5,000 miles of
sea, appear to be about as closely related as Dutch and German. The closest external relatives of the Polynesian
languages are Fijian and Rotuman, a non-Polynesian language spoken by a physically Polynesian population on
the small volcanic island of Rotuma northwest of the main Fijian island of Viti Levu; together with Polynesian,
Fijian and Rotuman form a Central Pacific group. A number of proposals have been made regarding the
immediate relationships of the Central Pacific languages; the majority of these suggest a grouping of Central
Pacific with certain languages in central and northern Vanuatu, but these proposals remain controversial.
Nuclear Micronesian
Most of the languages of Micronesia are Oceanic, and, with the possible exception of Nauruan, which is still
poorly described, they form a fairly close-knit subgroup that is often called Nuclear
Micronesian. Palauan, Chamorro (Mariana Islands), and Yapese (western Micronesia) are not Nuclear
Micronesian languages; the former two appear to be products of quite distinct migrations out of Indonesia or
the Philippines, and, while Yapese probably is Oceanic, it has a complex history of borrowing and does not readily
seem to form a subgroup with any other language.
Aberrant languages
Yapese is one of several problematic languages that can be shown to be Austronesian but that share little
vocabulary with more typical languages. Other languages of this category are Enggano, spoken on a small island
of the same name situated off the southwest coast of Sumatra, and a number of Melanesian languages. In the
most extreme cases the classification of a language as Austronesian or non-Austronesian has shifted back and
forth repeatedly, as with the Maisin language of southeastern Papua New Guinea (now generally regarded as an
Austronesian language with heavy contact influence from Papuan languages). Other controversial or aberrant
languages are Arove, Lamogai, and Kaulong of New Britain, Ririo and some other languages of the western
Solomons, Asumboa of the Santa Cruz archipelago, Aneityum and some other languages of southern Vanuatu,
several languages of New Caledonia, and Nengone and Dehu of the Loyalty Islands in southern Melanesia. Atayal
of northern Taiwan is an example of a language once considered to be highly aberrant in vocabulary, but it is
much less distinctive now that researchers have found that the Squliq dialect (which was chosen as
representative of Atayal) exhibits idiosyncratic changes owing to a historical form of “speech disguise”
characteristic of men’s speech. This feature is still preserved in the Mayrinax dialect of the Cʔuliʔ dialect cluster.
Prehistoric inferences from subgrouping
The view, current from roughly 1965 to 1975, that Melanesia is the area of greatest linguistic diversity in
Austronesian and that the Austronesian homeland therefore must have been in Melanesia has been shown to be
inconsistent both with the comparative method of linguistics and with archaeological indications that
Austronesian speakers entered the western Pacific from island Southeast Asia about 2000 BCE. It has
accordingly been abandoned by virtually all scholars.
Both linguistic and archaeological evidence point to an initial dispersal of Austronesian languages from Taiwan
several centuries after Neolithic settlers introduced grain agriculture, pottery making, and domesticated animals
to the island from the adjacent mainland of China about 4000 BCE. By perhaps 3500 BCE, populations bearing
a clear cultural resemblance to those in Taiwan had begun to appear in the northern Philippines, and within a
millennium similar material traces appear throughout Indonesia. The linguistic evidence suggests a steady
southward and eastward movement, with Austronesian speakers moving around the northern coast of New
Guinea into the western Pacific about 2000 BCE. From the region of New Guinea and the Bismarck
Archipelago settlers fanned out very rapidly, crossing the sea with highly seaworthy outrigger canoes.
In Oceania the dispersal of Austronesian-speaking peoples is most closely associated archaeologically with the
distribution of Lapita pottery. Because the earliest Lapita sites in Fiji and western Polynesia are only three or
four centuries younger than the earliest dated Lapita site in western Melanesia, the colonization of Melanesia as
far east as Fiji appears to have been accomplished within 15 or 20 generations. There is a puzzling thousand-year
gap before the settlement of central and eastern Polynesia, with Hawaii being settled only within the past 1,500–
1,700 years and New Zealand within roughly the past millennium.
The settlement history of Micronesia is more complex: Palau and the Mariana Islands were settled by two
migrations which were distinct from that associated with Lapita pottery. Most of the low coral atolls of
the Caroline Islands were settled by 2000 BP, but some radiocarbon dates from the Marshall Islands suggest
that Austronesian speakers may have reached the atolls of Micronesia not long after the settlement of Fiji and
western Polynesia.
External relationships
Speculation concerning the external relationships of Austronesian languages has ranged far and wide. In the first
half of the 19th century Bopp, who was a distinguished Indo-Europeanist, became convinced of the relationship
of Indo-European to Austronesian. This theme was taken up again in the 1930s by Brandstetter. In 1942 the
American linguist Paul K. Benedict initiated the Austro-Tai hypothesis, a proposed connection between the Tai
languages and various minority (Kadai) languages on the mainland of Southeast Asia. Other researchers have
proposed connections with Japanese (as has Benedict himself), the Papuan languages of New Guinea,
various American Indian languages, Chinese, and Ainu. In short, almost every language family that might
conceivably be related to Austronesian simply on grounds of a priori geographic proximity has been proposed as
a relative, the one notable exception to date being Australian Aboriginal languages. Most of these proposals are
speculative and have not achieved a general following.
Benedict’s Austro-Tai hypothesis has perhaps received the widest attention in recent years, as it has been
advocated in a large number of publications. However, in some ways the most compelling hypothesis for a wider
language grouping that includes Austronesian is the Austric hypothesis, linking the Austroasiatic
languages (the Munda languages of eastern India and the Mon-Khmer languages of mainland Southeast Asia)
with Austronesian. The original hypothesis, first proposed in 1906 by Wilhelm Schmidt and long neglected by
most linguists, has been greatly strengthened by more recent research.
Structural characteristics of Austronesian languages
Syntax
Word order
Although some linguists have questioned the usefulness of the notion of subject in Philippine languages, it
remains a pivotal concept in typological studies of word order. The great majority of Formosan and Philippine
languages are verb–subject–object (VSO) or VOS. This statement is true of virtually all the Formosan languages,
with the minor qualification that auxiliaries and markers of negation may precede the main verb. Some
contemporary languages, such as Thao and Saisiyat, have SVO word order, but there are indications that this is
a relatively recent adaptation to the similar word order of Taiwanese, the Chinese language with which the
Formosan languages have been in longest contact.
Most languages of western Indonesia—such as Malay, Javanese, or Balinese—are SVO. However, a smaller
number of languages, including Malagasy, the Batak languages of northern Sumatra, and Old Javanese (as
opposed to modern Javanese), begin sentences with a verb. The majority of Austronesian languages in both
eastern Indonesia and the Pacific are also SVO. The major exceptions to this pattern are in coastal areas of New
Guinea, where a number of Austronesian languages are SOV, and the Polynesian languages and Fijian, which are
VSO. The SOV languages of New Guinea also exhibit other features universally characteristic of verb-final
languages, such as the use of postpositions (e.g., “the house in”) rather than prepositions (“in the house”). It is
generally agreed that these Austronesian languages evolved to their present state as a result of generations of
contact with Papuan languages, which typically are SOV.
Verb systems
Perhaps the most fundamental distinction in the verb systems of Austronesian languages is the division into
stative and dynamic verbs. Stative verbs often translate as adjectives in English, and in many Austronesian
languages it is doubtful whether a category of true adjectives exists. Examples of stative verbs are ‘to be afraid,’
‘to be sick/painful,’ ‘to be new,’ ‘to sleep/to be asleep,’ and colour words. In some languages the stative
prefix ma- can be added to higher numerals, as in Maranao ma-gatos ‘one hundred.’
Dynamic verbs generally are more complex than stative verbs. Most Formosan and Philippine languages and
many of the languages of Sulawesi have a large inventory of affixes used to create different nuances of meaning
in verbal or nominal stems. Most noteworthy is the system of verbal focus, which has been the centre of
controversy and the subject of many conflicting interpretations since 1917, when Leonard Bloomfield provided
the first detailed description of Tagalog syntax. The major verbal focuses of Tagalog can be illustrated as follows:
A sentence that focuses on the actor (subject) is marked by -um-; for example, b-um-ilí ang lalake ng tinapay
sa tindahan ‘the man bought some bread at the store’ (literally, ‘buy ang man ng bread sa store’) or b-um-ilí si
Maria ng tinapay sa tindahan ‘Maria is buying/bought some bread at the store’ (literally,
‘buy si Maria ng bread sa store’). A sentence that focuses on the patient (object) is marked by -in- in the past,
and by -in in the nonpast); for example, b-in-ilí ni Maria ang tinapay sa tindahan ‘Maria bought the bread at
a/the store’ (literally, ‘bought ni Maria ang bread sa store’) or bilh-ín ni Maria ang tinapay sa tindahan ‘Maria
is buying the bread at a/the store.’ A sentence that has a locative focus is marked by -an; for example, b-in-ilhán ng babae ng tinapay ang tindahan ni Aling Maria ‘the woman bought some bread at Maria’s store’ (literally,
‘bought ng woman ng bread ang store’). A sentence with an instrumental or benefactive focus is marked by i-;
for example, i-b-in-ilí ni Maria ng tinapay ang pera nang tatay-niyá ‘Maria bought some bread with her
father’s money’ or i-b-in-ilí ni Maria ng tinapay si Juan ‘Maria bought (some) bread for Juan.’
In each of the above sentences one noun is marked as being in focus. Focused personal nouns (proper names or
common nouns that can be used as proper names, such as ‘Mother’ or ‘Father’) are preceded by si. Focused
common nouns are preceded by ang, and the combination is commonly called the “ang-phrase.” The syntactic
relationship that the focused noun bears to the verb is signaled by the focus affix (e.g., actor, patient). Moreover,
focused noun phrases are definite, or old information, while nonfocused noun phrases may be either definite or
indefinite. The speaker’s choice of focus thus depends to a large extent on discourse factors. Similar systems of
encoding syntactic relationships are widespread in Formosan and Philippine languages, in the languages of
Sabah (formerly North Borneo), in those of northern Sulawesi (northern Celebes), in the Chamorro language of
western Micronesia, and in Malagasy. Somewhat less similar systems with some of the same features are found
in the Batak languages of northern Sumatera (northern Sumatra) and in Old Javanese.
One school holds that focus is voice. Under this interpretation such languages as Tagalog have only one active
voice but three types of passives: a direct passive, a local passive, and an instrumental or benefactive passive. A
second school holds that focus is case-marking: the case roles of subjects are marked by the focus affix on the
verb. What distinguishes focus systems from the simple active-passive voice systems of such languages as Malay
or modern Javanese is their ability by means of verbal affixation to express prepositional phrases as subjects.
When the prepositional phrase is not in focus it is expressed as a preposition followed by a noun rather than as
an ang-phrase: compare the third example above, b-in-ilh-án ng babae ng tinapay ang tindahan ‘the woman
bought the bread at the store,’ where ang tindahan ‘the store’ is in focus and the locative relationship is expressed
by the verb suffix -an, with any of the other sentences that contain tindahan ‘store,’ where the locative
relationship is expressed by the preposition sa.
One feature of the verb systems of many Austronesian languages is particularly noteworthy: nonsubject actors
and possessors are marked in the same way (in Tagalog these are marked with the particle ni). As a result ‘was
bitten by the dog’ and ‘the dog’s biting (of something)’ have identical structures. Because of this ambiguity the
focus affixes in most focus languages create both verbs and nouns. Where focus has been lost, as in much of
Indonesia and the Pacific, the remnant affixes may be used only to create nouns.
Pronouns
Almost all Austronesian languages distinguish two forms of ‘we’: an inclusive form (listener included) and
an exclusive form (listener excluded). Many languages in the Philippines have a special dual inclusive (‘you and
me’). In addition to singular and plural numbers, some Oceanic languages distinguish a dual number (‘we two,’
‘you two,’ ‘the two of them’). A few Oceanic languages distinguish a fourth number that is greater than two but
smaller than a typical plural. Historically, this number derives from the Proto-Austronesian word for ‘three,’ but
it may in fact apply to numbers up to five and so is sometimes called “paucal” (‘a few’). Gender is rarely if ever
distinguished.
Probably the most spectacular pronominal feature in Austronesian languages is the expression of possessivemarking in Oceanic languages. In many of the languages of Melanesia, nouns are marked for one of two types of
possessive relationship, generally called “inalienable” and “alienable.” Inalienable categories include body parts,
certain kinship relationships, and such “spiritual” aspects of an individual as his shadow (often associated with
the soul) and his name. Inalienable possession is marked by suffixing a possessive pronoun to the possessed
noun, as in Fijian na mata-na ‘his eye’ (literally, ‘[article] eye-his’) or na tama-qu ‘my father.’ Alienable
possession is expressed by suffixing the possessive pronoun to a generally preposed classifying particle that
specifies any of several possible relationships between the possessed noun and the possessor, as in Fijian na nona vale ‘his house’ (literally, ‘[article] neutral-his house’), na ke-na ika ‘his fish (to eat)’ (‘[article] edible-his
fish’), and na me-na dovu ‘his sugarcane (to suck the juice from)’ (‘[article] drinkable-his sugarcane’). The
distinction between neutral and edible possession is widespread in Oceanic languages, and it appears in a few
languages of eastern Indonesia. The further distinction of drinkable possession has a more limited distribution.
The Polynesian languages have a somewhat different system of possessive marking. The most prominent feature
of this system is the contrast between what are sometimes called “dominant” and “subordinate” possession. In
dominant possession the possessor generally has a relationship of control, as with Hawaiian ka ki‘i a Lani ‘the
picture taken or painted by Lani,’ while in subordinate possession this sense of control does not exist, as in ka
ki‘i o Lani ‘the picture taken or painted of Lani.’
Numbers and number classifiers
Most
Austronesian
languages
have
a
decimal
system
of
counting,
as
illustrated
in
the
Table. Others, such as Ilongot of the northern
Philippines and some of the languages of the Lesser Sunda Islands in eastern Indonesia, have quinary systems
(i.e., systems based on five). In the New Guinea area several Austronesian languages have radically restructured
number systems that probably result from intensive contact with neighbouring Papuan languages. An example
is Gapapaiwa of Milne Bay, with sago ‘one,’ ruwa ‘two,’ aroba ‘three,’ ruwa ma ruwa ‘four’ (literally, ‘two and
two’), miikovi ‘five’ (‘hand finished’), miikovi ma sago ‘six,’ miikovi ma ruwa ‘seven,’ and so on. In such systems
counting is often limited to relatively small quantities.
A number of the languages of Indonesia and the Pacific use number classifiers in counting objects, as with Bahasa
Indonesia se-buah rumah ‘a house’ (literally, ‘one-fruit house’), se-orang guru ‘a teacher’ (literally, ‘one-person
teacher’), or se-batang rokok ‘a cigarette’ (literally, ‘one-trunk cigarette’). In some languages of Micronesia the
traditional counting systems were highly complex, with upwards of 30 number classifiers that distinguished
counted objects by their shape, animateness, and other features.
Spacial orientation
Some Austronesian languages have terms for the cardinal directions east, west, north, and south, but in most
cases these appear to have developed after European contact and may sometimes be due to inaccurate reporting
by Europeans.
The system of directional orientation found in many Austronesian languages is constructed on two axes, a landsea axis and a monsoon axis. The land-sea axis is very widespread among Austronesian-speaking peoples. Two
widely separated examples are Thao (central Taiwan) tana-saya ‘uphill, toward the mountains,’ tanaraus ‘downhill, toward the sea’ and Hawaiian mauka ‘toward the mountains,’ makai ‘toward the sea.’ The
monsoon axis is geographically more restricted, but the earlier reconstructed terms *habaRat ‘west monsoon’
and *timuR ‘southeast monsoon’ have been preserved in languages outside the monsoon region, though with
change of meaning (e.g., Samoan afā ‘storm, gale, hurricane,’ timu ‘be rainy’).
Demonstrative pronouns often distinguish two forms of ‘there.’ In some languages these correspond to secondperson and third-person pronominal reference: ‘there (near the listener)’ versus ‘there (near a third person).’ In
other languages a distinction is made between a referent that is visible versus a referent that is not visible.
Morphology and canonical shape
Verb morphology
The Austronesian languages of Taiwan, the Philippines, northern Borneo, and Sulawesi and some other
languages (such as Malagasy, Palauan, and Chamorro) are characterized by a very rich morphology, which
functions in both verb-forming and noun-forming processes. Some languages use affixation to encode many
types of syntactic relationships that are expressed in most other languages through the use of free words. Thao
of central Taiwan, for example, allows aspect markers to be attached to prepositional phrases, as in in-i-nay
yaku ‘I was here’ (literally, ‘[past]-location-this I’). In Thao, relative clauses are expressed through attributive
constructions that may use complex nouns derived by affixation, as in m-ihu a s-in-aran-an yanan sapaz ‘the
place where you walked has footprints’ (‘your [ligature-past]-walking-place has footprints’). Most of the so-called
focus affixes in such languages have both verbalizing and nominalizing functions.
Many of the languages of Sulawesi and eastern Indonesia have prefixed subject markers on the verb. In some
languages these co-occur with full free pronouns marking the subject and so function like a system of agreement.
In some of the languages of western Melanesia, such as Motu, the verb complex consists of a prefixed subject
marker, the verb stem, and a suffixed object marker, together with free nouns or pronouns marking subject and
object, producing structures such as ‘the man the dog he-kicked-it’ for ‘the man kicked the dog.’ In a case such
as this, the structure of the verb complex provides a clue that the current SOV order of sentence constituents has
developed from an earlier SVO order.
Reduplication
Reduplication takes numerous forms and has a great variety of functions in Austronesian languages. Partial
reduplication of a verb stem is used to mark the future tense in both Rukai of Taiwan and Tagalog of the
Philippines, as in Tagalog l-um-akad ‘walk’ but la-lakad ‘will walk’ or s-um-ulat ‘write,’ su-sulat ‘will write.’ Full
reduplication is used to mark plurality of nouns in Bahasa Indonesia, as with anak ‘child’ but anak
anak ‘children.’ In many languages reduplication is used together with affixation to express a variety of
semantic nuances. The pattern seen in Indonesian anak anak-an ‘doll’ or orang orang-an ‘scarecrow’
(orang ‘person’) is only one of many that occur in various languages.
Submorphemes
Linguists have generally maintained that the smallest meaning-bearing units of language structure
are morphemes, elements that are isolated by the contrast of partially similar words, as
in berry: cranberry (hence both cran and berry are morphemes of English). However, English words such
as glow, glimmer, glisten, glitter, glare, glint, gloss, and the like exhibit a recurrent association of sound and
meaning without contrast. Many Austronesian languages, particularly in insular Southeast Asia, show similar
types of recurrent sound-meaning associations that are not defined by contrast. In the great majority of cases,
these consist of the last syllable of a morpheme. A clear illustration is seen in Malay, where about 40 two-syllable
words end in -pit and roughly half of these have meanings that can be characterized as referring to the
approximation of two surfaces, as in (h)apit ‘pressure between two disconnected surfaces,’ capit ‘pincers,’ mencepit ‘to nip,’ dempit ‘pressed together, in contact,’ gapit ‘nipper, clamp,’ kempit ‘carry under the arm,’
and limpit ‘in layers.’
Canonical shape
The term canonical shape refers to the clearly marked preferences that some languages show for number of
syllables, sequencing of consonants and vowels, and so on in the construction of words. Many Austronesian
languages show a clear preference for a disyllabic (two-syllable) canonical shape in content words (words that
have a reference rather than a purely grammatical function). Where this preference is violated by the operation
of other forces, it often reasserts itself through special mechanisms. Javanese əri ‘thorn’ passed through a stage
in which it was ri but gained a schwa to meet the preferred two-syllable canonical shape. Many other quite varied
examples of this type can be shown for languages throughout the Austronesian family.
In view of the disyllabic canonical target in Austronesian languages, the words that represent certain meanings
are often conspicuous for their length. An example is the word for ‘butterfly’: Paiwan (Taiwan) quLipepe,
Puyuma (Taiwan) Halivanvan, Bunun (Taiwan) talikoan, Ilokano (Philippines) kulibangbang, Tagalog
(Philippines) alibangbang, Iban (Borneo and Malaysia) kelebembang, Tae’ (Sulawesi) kalubambang, Sichule
(Sumatra) alifambang, Gani (Halmahera) kalibobo, Numbami (north coast of New Guinea) kaimbombo. This
word contains a prefix or family of prefixes that almost invariably is fossilized, thus creating a much longer word
than is typical of Austronesian languages. The same phenomenon is seen with certain other meanings, such as
‘ant,’ ‘firefly,’ ‘leech’ (two types), ‘echo,’ ‘dizzy,’ ‘rainbow,’ ‘whirlpool/whirlwind,’ and ‘hair whorl.’
In the Philippines clusters consisting of “heterorganic” consonants (consonants produced at different places in
the mouth) are common in the middle of words (Tagalog hagpós ‘loose, slack,’ puknát ‘unglued, detached’), but
this is not typical of Austronesian languages in most other areas, where consonants tend to alternate with vowels
in CVCV sequences.
Most Austronesian languages do not permit final palatal consonants, although in a few cases these have
developed through secondary change. Other languages have a severely restricted inventory of possible final
consonants in relation to consonants in other positions, as with Makasarese of southern Sulawesi, where the only
possible final consonants are the velar nasal -ŋ and the glottal stop (a consonant produced by suddenly closing
the vocal cords so as to interrupt the outward flow of air from the lungs).
In most Oceanic languages and some Austronesian languages in other areas, all words end in a vowel. This is the
result of either of two types of change: loss of final consonants or addition either of an “echo” vowel or of an
invariant “supporting” vowel. Fijian and the Polynesian languages show open final syllables as a result of the first
type of development; Mussau of western Melanesia and Malagasy show open final syllables as a result of the
second type (see
Table).
Phonetics and phonology
Size of phoneme inventory
Most Austronesian languages have between 16 and 22 consonants and 4 or 5 vowels. Exceptionally large
consonant inventories are found in the languages of the Loyalty Islands in southern Melanesia, and exceptionally
small consonant inventories in the Polynesian languages. Hawaiian has the second smallest inventory
of phonemes, or distinctive sounds, of any known language, with just eight consonants (p, k, ‘ [glottal stop], m,
n, l, h, and w) and five vowels (a, e, i, o, and u).
Vowel systems in Austronesian languages tend to be simple. Many languages in Taiwan, the Philippines,
and Indonesia have just four contrasting vowels: i, u, a, and e, an indistinct mid-central vowel. The great
majority of Oceanic languages have a five-vowel system: i, u, e, o, and a. Larger vowel systems are found in a
number of Nuclear Micronesian languages, in some of the languages of Melanesia (such as Sakao of north-central
Vanuatu), and in a few of the Chamic languages.
Phonetic types
In view of the large number of Austronesian languages it is not surprising that observers have recorded a wide
range of speech sounds, including some that are quite rare in the world’s languages. Some Formosan
languages have a uvular stop (written q), which is a consonant sound produced by drawing the backmost part of
the tongue down to touch the wall of the pharynx. A number of the languages of Borneo and some other areas
have unusual nasal consonants belonging to either of two types: “preploded” nasals, in which nasal consonants
are heard as /-pm/, /-tn/, and /-kng/ at the end of a word, and what might be called “postploded” nasals /-mb/, /-nd-/, or /-ngg-/, in which a nasal consonant between vowels is followed by a stop that is almost too short to
hear.
Preglottalized or implosive consonants are found in several of the languages of central Taiwan, in a number of
the languages of northwestern Borneo, in the Chamic languages of mainland Southeast Asia, and in several
languages of the Lesser Sunda Islands. In Fijian and many other languages of Melanesia, voiced stops b, d,
and g are automatically preceded by a nasal: mb, nd, and ngg. Perhaps the most unusual consonant types
reported in Austronesian are prenasalized bilabial trills, made by trilling the lips following an m, and apico-labial
stops (nasals and fricatives), which are made by touching the upper lip with the tip of the tongue. The former are
quite common in the languages of Manus Island in the Admiralty Islands of western Melanesia, and the latter
are found in a number of languages scattered throughout central Vanuatu.
Many Austroasiatic languages of the Mon-Khmer family found on mainland Southeast Asia distinguish two voice
registers, a breathy, or “sepulchral,” voice (made by relaxing the vocal cords) and a clear voice (made by tensing
the vocal cords). As a result of generations of bilingualism this feature has been acquired by most of the Chamic
languages. Together with other Mon-Khmer characteristics, these areal adaptations in the Chamic languages
caused Schmidt in 1906 to incorrectly classify them as “Austroasiatic mixed languages.” Where they have been
further exposed to languages with lexical tone, as Eastern Cham (in contact with Vietnamese) or Tsat (in contact
with both Chinese and Tai-Kadai tone languages on Hainan Island in southern China), at least two Chamic
languages have become largely monosyllabic and tonal. Tonal contrasts are also reported for a few Austronesian
languages in two widely separated parts of New Guinea and in southern New Caledonia. Despite contact with
Chinese, which in some cases must date back at least three centuries, none of the aboriginal languages of Taiwan
are tonal.
Many languages in the Philippines use stress to distinguish words that are otherwise identical in form, as in
Tagalog sábat ‘design woven into cloth or matting’ versus sabát ‘stop pin or lug.’ Some languages outside the
Philippines use accent contrasts to distinguish different forms of the same word, as in Toba Batak (northern
Sumatra) gógo ‘push hard!’ versus gogó ‘strong’ or díla ‘tongue’ versus dilá ‘a big talker.’ The origin and history
of accent contrasts remains one of the major unresolved problems in the study of the Austronesian languages.
Lexical semantics and sociolinguistics
Lexical semantics
Many common words in Austronesian languages are not easily translated into English or most other European
languages. Examples of noncorrespondence can be seen in the comparison of several Malay words to English
meanings: (1) one to many: Malay kaki corresponds to both ‘foot’ and ‘leg’ in English, (2) many to one:
Malay rambut and bulu both correspond to English ‘hair,’ the former referring exclusively to hair of the head
and the latter to body hair, downy feathers, plant floss, and the like, and (3) some combination of many to one
and one to many: Malay adik corresponds to both ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ in English but is used only to refer to
siblings younger than the speaker; Malay kakak also means both ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ but is used to refer to older
siblings. In many Austronesian languages there is no general term for the verbs ‘to cut’ or ‘to carry,’ or for the
noun ‘root,’ but rather numerous terms to specify the type of activity or type of structure in much greater detail
than is typical in European languages.
Speech levels and honorific registers
Javanese and several languages in close contact with it—including at least Sundanese and Balinese—have
developed a linguistic reflection of social stratification. Javanese uses three speech levels, distinguished by choice
of vocabulary. The primary distinction is between Kromo, a high form used when speaking to social superiors,
and Ngoko, a low or neutral form used when speaking to social equals or inferiors. Further subdivisions are
recognized within Kromo, and in addition a small number of words called Madya (Middle) contain elements of
both Kromo and Ngoko styles. In Samoa a special vocabulary is used when addressing persons of chiefly rank.
Male-female speech differences are covert in many languages, evident chiefly in the greater frequency with which
speakers of one sex use particular forms; in some languages, however, gender-associated differences become
conventionalized and rigid. The most-notable case reported for an Austronesian language is in
the Mayrinax dialect of Atayal in northern Taiwan, where women’s speech is historically a
more conservative variety and men’s speech shows unpredictable changes in pronunciation owing to the addition
of entire syllables to earlier word forms.
These innovations present in Atayal men’s speech may have originated as a form of speech disguise. In Tagalog
and some other languages of the Philippines, as well as in Malay, forms of “backward speech” (which have as
their primary purpose the concealment of messages) have been reported for adolescents. Such phenomena are
functionally not unlike English pig Latin. Iban of northwestern Borneo shows an unusually large number of
words with what appear to be reversals of the meanings found in cognates in other languages. This, too, may
reflect an earlier tradition of speech disguise that succeeded in altering some meanings of the language for all
speakers.
Reconstruction and change
Grammar
Proto-Austronesian (PAN) probably had a verb–object–subject (VOS) word order. Four PAN affixes are
commonly recognized: *Si- marked instrumental focus (abbreviated IF), *-um- actor focus (AF), *-an locative
focus (LF), and *-en patient focus (PF). In addition, the infix *-in- marked completive (c) aspect or past tense.
The completive infix could co-occur with *Si-, *-um-, and *-an, but, in the completive form of the patient focus,
*-in- was used without the suffix *-en, and *-in- thus simultaneously marked two functions: *k-um-aen i
aku (AF) ‘I am eating,’ *k-um-in-aen i aku ‘I was eating,’ *kaen-en ni aku (PF) ‘is eaten by me/what I am eating,’
*k-in-aen ni aku (PFc) ‘was eaten by me/what I ate.’ This fusion of functions in the infix *-in-, when used with
the patient focus, has been carried down to many attested languages, including languages that no longer have a
focus system.
Most views of grammatical change in Austronesian assume that Philippine-type focus systems continue a type
of structure that was present from the earliest recoverable period. Not only do widely scattered languages,
including Malagasy and Chamorro, have such systems, but many other languages have what appear to be
fragments of a formerly more fully integrated system of particles and affixes. For example, in Tagalog the
particle si, indicating actor focus for personal nominals, is syntactically opposed to ni, marking
genitive/agentive. In Malay, a nonfocus language with a simple active-passive verb contrast corresponding to the
focus systems of Philippine languages, ni has disappeared and the particle si has no grammatical function other
than simply marking personal names or attributes used as names with a mildly pejorative connotation, as in si
Ahmad ‘Ahmad’ or si Gemuk ‘Chubby’ (compare gemuk ‘obese’).
It is generally agreed that the focus affixes (with the possible exception of *-um-) had both verbalizing and
nominalizing functions. A more extreme view, not widely held, maintains that the focus affixes were originally
used only to create nominals and were reinterpreted as verbal affixes in the separate histories of many daughter
languages.
Proto-Oceanic diverged widely from this type of syntax. It appears to have been SVO, and most of the
focus morphology of Proto-Austronesian was either lost or reinterpreted as nominalizing morphology. A major
debate that has continued for three decades concerns the classification of various of the Polynesian languages as
either accusative (having both transitive and intransitive subjects distinguished from objects) or ergative (having
intransitive subjects and objects distinguished from transitive subjects). Differing theory-dependent definitions
of these terms have not facilitated agreement.
Morphology
The morphology of verbal focus has attracted the most attention in Austronesian studies, but other areas of
morphology are also of interest. One such area is that of Ca-reduplication, a pattern of derivation in which the
first consonant and vowel (stereotypically an *a) are repeated. This pattern was first recognized with the
numbers, where *esa ‘one,’ *duSa ‘two,’ *telu ‘three,’ *Sepat ‘four,’ *lima ‘five,’ and the like are matched by a
corresponding set of numbers *a-esa, *da-duSa, *ta-telu, *Sa-Sepat, *la-lima. The unreduplicated set was used
in serial counting or in counting nonhuman objects, and the reduplicated set in counting human beings. In some
daughter languages (such as Tagalog) elements from both sets have survived and have been combined into a
single set. In addition, Ca-reduplication was used rather productively to derive instrumental nouns from verbs.
Phonology
Proto-Austronesian probably had the following consonant inventory: voiceless stops *p, *t, *C, *c, *k, and *q;
voiced stops *b, *d, *z, *j, and *g; nasals *m, *n, *ñ, and *ŋ; fricatives *s, *S, and *h; liquids *l, *N, *r, and *R;
and semivowels *w and *y. *C and *c probably were alveolar and palatal affricates; *q was a uvular stop. The
*z was most likely the voiced counterpart of *c, while *j appears to have been a voiced palatalized velar stop, a
segment without any counterpart elsewhere in the system. The *s probably was a palatal and *S an alveolar
sibilant; although conventionally written with the symbol for a nasal, *N is more likely to have been a liquid of
some kind; *r seems to have been an alveolar tap, and *R an alveolar or uvular trill. There were just four vowels:
*i, *u, *a, and *ə (the schwa, a neutral mid-central vowel). In addition the semivowels *w and *y combined with
*a, *i, and *u to form diphthongs *-aw, *-ay, *-iw, and *-uy.
The principal changes from this system to that of Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (the hypothetical ancestor of all nonFormosan Austronesian languages) are the merger of *C and *t as PMP *t, the merger of *N and *n as PMP *n,
and the shift of *S to PMP *h (and of *eS to *ah). A number of other mergers occurred in Proto-Oceanic,
including the merger of *p and *b and of *k and *g; the merger of the palatals *s, *c, *z, and (in all Oceanic
languages outside the Admiralty Islands of western Melanesia) *j; and the merger of *e and *-aw as ProtoOceanic *o. These changes are illustrated in the Table.
Vocabulary
About 5,000 unaffixed stems have been reconstructed for Proto-Austronesian, Proto-Malayo-Polynesian, or
Proto-Western-Malayo-Polynesian. Although the Indo-European languages have a far richer textual tradition,
probably no language family excels Austronesian in the richness of vocabulary reconstructed through the
comparative method.
The vocabulary of a language reflects the collective experience of its speakers, making reference to both their
natural world and their culture. The reconstruction of vocabulary and the identification of loanwords thus can
provide insight into the natural environment and culture of prehistoric language communities and the nature of
their linguistic contacts.
Reconstructed vocabulary shows clearly that the speakers of Proto-Austronesian had grain crops, including rice
and millet; that they lived in settled villages of houses raised on piles; that they practiced weaving on simple back
looms; that they domesticated dogs, pigs, and probably chickens; and that they were in contact with the sea and
its resources. Familiarity with many tropical food plants can be inferred for speakers of Proto-MalayoPolynesian. These include the coconut, banana, yam, sugarcane, pandanus, taro, sago, and breadfruit. Of these
only sugarcane, pandanus, and wild taros of the genus Alocasia can safely be inferred for Proto-Austronesian,
which probably was spoken on both sides of the Tropic of Cancer.
Reconstructions for ‘boat,’ ‘sail,’ and ‘paddle’ can be attributed to Proto-Austronesian, but terminology specific
to the outrigger can be assigned only to Proto-Malayo-Polynesian, a language that was probably spoken
somewhere in the northern Philippines in the period 3500–3000 BCE.
Lexicostatistics, a controversial method for studying word replacement in relation to subgrouping, often
distinguishes a subset of terms called “basic vocabulary.” Lists of basic vocabulary words typically include those
for body parts, terms for everyday natural phenomena (sky, wind, rain, sun, star, earth, stone, water, tree), basic
kin terms (father, mother, child), and some others. Although lexicostatistical theory assumes a universally
constant rate for the replacement of basic vocabulary, replacement rates in Austronesian languages appear to
show considerable variation. Malay and its closest relatives (Iban, Minangkabau, and so on), many Philippine
languages, and some languages in eastern Indonesia (Manggarai of the Lesser Sundas, Yamdena of the southern
Moluccas) show very high concentrations of vocabulary items that have a wide distribution in the Austronesian
family. It is inferred from this that they have replaced basic vocabulary at a slower rate than other languages. By
contrast, languages in the South Halmahera–West New Guinea group and many of the Austronesian languages
of western Melanesia show far lower concentrations of widely distributed forms, and it is inferred that they have
experienced more rapid rates of basic vocabulary replacement. Some Oceanic languages—including several in
the southeastern Solomons, Fijian, Polynesian (especially Samoan and Tongan), and the Chuukic (Trukic)
languages of Micronesia—also have relatively large concentrations of widely distributed forms and have for this
reason traditionally been highly valued as witnesses in comparative linguistics.