Everything about The Malayo-polynesian Languages totally explained
The
Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the
Austronesian languages, with approximately 351 million speakers. These are widely dispersed throughout the island nations of
Southeast Asia and the
Pacific Ocean, with a smaller number in continental
Asia.
Malagasy is a geographic outlier, spoken in the island of
Madagascar in the
Indian Ocean.
A characteristic of the Malayo-Polynesian languages is a tendency to use
reduplication (repetition of all or part of a word --for example,
wiki-wiki) to express the plural, and like other Austronesian languages they've simple
phonologies; thus a text has few but frequent sounds. The majority also lack consonant clusters (for example, [str] or [mpt] in English). Most also have only a small set of spoken vowels, five being a common number.
Classification
For several decades, Malayo-Polynesian was divided into
Western ("Hesperonesian") and
Central-Eastern branches. However, the Western branch was a geographic grouping never positively defined as a linguistic unit; it was only described negatively as those Malayo-Polynesian languages which were not in the well established Central-Eastern branch. In recent classifications it has been abandoned, with some of its languages split off in an "Outer" group as a primary branch of Malayo-Polynesian, and the rest retained in an "Inner" group within a
Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian branch. These Inner and Outer groups may also be called the
Borneo-Philippines languages and
Sunda-Sulawesi languages, after their geographic spread.
The Borneo-Philippines, Outer Western Malayo-Polynesian, or Outer Hesperonesian languages
Borneo-Philippines languages have about 130 million speakers and include Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilokano, Hiligaynon, Bikolano, Kapampangan, Waray-Waray, and Malagasy.
Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian languages
;The Sunda-Sulawesi, Inner Western Malayo-Polynesian, or Inner Hesperonesian languages
These languages are spoken by about 230 million speakers and include Indonesian Malay, Malaysian Malay, Sundanese, Javanese, Acehnese, Chamorro, and Palau (Belau).
;The Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages
These include Gilbertese, Nauruan, Romang, Hawaiian, Maori, Samoan, Tahitian, Tongan, and Tuvaluan.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Malayo-polynesian Languages'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://malayo-polynesian_languages.totallyexplained.com">Malayo-Polynesian languages Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
