Austronesian languages

Lexicon

The Austronesian language family has been established by the linguistic comparative method on the basis of cognate sets, sets of words from multiple languages, which are similar in sound and meaning which can be shown to be descended from the same ancestral word in Proto-Austronesian 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 and Amis all the way south to Māori).

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 dusa; Amis tusa; Māori rua) require some linguistic expertise to recognise. The Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database gives word lists (coded for cognateness) for approximately 1000 Austronesian languages.

Classification

The internal structure of the Austronesian languages is complex. The family consists of many similar and closely related languages with large numbers of dialect continua, making it difficult to recognize boundaries between branches. The first major step towards high-order subgrouping was Dempwolff's recognition of the Oceanic subgroup (called Melanesisch by Dempwolff). The special position of the languages of Taiwan was first recognized by André-Georges Haudricourt (1965), who divided the Austronesian languages into three subgroups: Northern Austronesian (= Formosan), Eastern Austronesian (= Oceanic), and Western Austronesian (all remaining languages).

In a study that represents the first lexicostatistical classification of the Austronesian languages, Isidore Dyen (1965) presented a radically different subgrouping scheme. He posited 40 first-order subgroups, with the highest degree of diversity found in the area of Melanesia. The Oceanic languages are not recognized, but are distributed over more than 30 of his proposed first-order subgroups. Dyen's classification was widely criticized and for the most part rejected, but several of his lower-order subgroups are still accepted (e.g. the Cordilleran languages, the Bilic languages or the Murutic languages).

Subsequently, the position of the Formosan languages as the most archaic group of Austronesian languages was recognized by Otto Christian Dahl (1973), followed by proposals from other scholars that the Formosan languages actually make up more than one first-order subgroup of Austronesian. Robert Blust (1977) first presented the subgrouping model which is currently accepted by virtually all scholars in the field, with more than one first-order subgroup on Taiwan, and a single first-order branch encompassing all Austronesian languages spoken outside of Taiwan, viz. Malayo-Polynesian. The relationships of the Formosan languages to each other and the internal structure of Malayo-Polynesian continue to be debated.

Primary branches on Taiwan (Formosan languages)

In addition to Malayo-Polynesian, thirteen Formosan subgroups are broadly accepted. The seminal article in the classification of Formosan—and, by extension, the top-level structure of Austronesian—is Blust (1999). Prominent Formosanists (linguists who specialize in Formosan languages) take issue with some of its details, but it remains the point of reference for current linguistic analyses. Debate centers primarily around the relationships between these families. Of the classifications presented here, Blust (1999) links two families into a Western Plains group, two more in a Northwestern Formosan group, and three into an Eastern Formosan group, while Li (2008) also links five families into a Northern Formosan group. Harvey (1982), Chang (2006) and Ross (2012) split Tsouic, and Blust (2013) agrees the group is probably not valid.

Other studies have presented phonological evidence for a reduced Paiwanic family of Paiwanic, Puyuma, Bunun, Amis, and Malayo-Polynesian, but this is not reflected in vocabulary. The Eastern Formosan peoples Basay, Kavalan, and Amis share a homeland motif that has them coming originally from an island called Sinasay or Sanasay. The Amis, in particular, maintain that they came from the east, and were treated by the Puyuma, amongst whom they settled, as a subservient group.

Blust (1999)

• Formosan
  • Tsouic
    (abandoned in Blust 2013)
    • Tsou language
    • Saaroa language
    • Kanakanavu language
  • Western Plains
    • Thao language a.k.a. Sao: Brawbaw and Shtafari dialects
    • Central Western Plains
      • Babuza language; old Favorlang language: Taokas and Poavosa dialects
      • Papora-Hoanya language: Papora, Hoanya dialects
  • Northwest Formosan
    • Saisiyat language: Taai and Tungho dialects
    • Pazeh language and Kulun
  • Atayalic
    • Atayal language
    • Seediq language a.k.a. Truku/Taroko
  • East Formosan
    (based on a single merger, of pAN *n and *j)
    • Northern (Kavalanic languages)
      • Basay language: Trobiawa and Linaw–Qauqaut dialects
      • Kavalan language
      • Ketagalan language, or Ketangalan
    • Central (Ami)
      • Amis proper
      • Sakizaya
    • Siraya language
  • Bunun language
  • Rukai language
    • Mantauran, Tona, and Maga dialects of Rukai are divergent
  • Puyuma language
  • Paiwan language (south-eastern tip of Formosa)
  • (outside Formosa)
  • Malayo-Polynesian

Li (2008)

This classification retains Blust's East Formosan, and unites the other northern languages. Li (2008) proposes a Proto-Formosan (F0) ancestor and equates it with Proto-Austronesian (PAN), following the model in Starosta (1995). Rukai and Tsouic are seen as highly divergent, although the position of Rukai is highly controversial.

• Formosan
  • F0: Proto-Formosan = Proto-Austronesian
    • Rukai
      • Mantauran
      • Maga–Tona, Budai–Labuan–Taromak
  • F1: (unnamed branch)
    • Central (Tsouic)
      • Tsou
      • Southern Tsouic
        • Saaroa
        • Kanakanavu
  • F2: (unnamed branch)
    • Northern Formosan
      • Northwestern (Plains)
        • Saisiyat–Kulon, Pazeh
        • Western
          • Thao
          • West Coast (Papora–Hoanya–Babuza–Taokas)
      • Atayalic
        • Squliq Atayal
        • Tsʼoleʼ Atayal (= Cʼuliʼ)
        • Seediq
    • East Formosan
      • Kavalan–Basay
      • Siraya–Amis–Nataoran
      • Sakizaya
    • ? Southern [uncertain]
      • Bunun
        • Isbukun
        • Northern and Central (Takitudu and Takbanuaz)
      • Paiwan–Puyuma [uncertain]

Sagart (2004, 2021)

Sagart (2004) proposes that the numerals of the Formosan languages reflect a nested series of innovations, from languages in the northwest (near the putative landfall of the Austronesian migration from the mainland), which share only the numerals 1–4 with proto-Malayo-Polynesian, counter-clockwise to the eastern languages (purple on map), which share all numerals 1–10. Sagart (2021) finds other shared innovations that follow the same pattern. He proposes that pMP *lima 'five' is a lexical replacement (from 'hand'), and that pMP *pitu 'seven', *walu 'eight' and *Siwa 'nine' are contractions of pAN *RaCep 'five', a ligature *a or *i 'and', and *duSa 'two', *telu 'three', *Sepat 'four', an analogical pattern historically attested from Pazeh. The fact that the Kradai languages share the numeral system (and other lexical innovations) of pMP suggests that they are a coordinate branch with Malayo-Polynesian, rather than a sister family to Austronesian.

Sagart's resulting classification is:

• Austronesian (pAN ca. 5200 BP)
  • Saisiyat
  • Luilang
  • Pazeh, Kulon
    (These four languages are outside Pituish, but Sagart is ambivalent as to any relationship among them, other than retaining Blust's connection between Pazeh and Kulon)
  • Pituish
    (pAN *RaCepituSa 'five-and-two' truncated to *pitu 'seven'; *sa-ŋ-aCu 'nine' [lit. one taken away])
    • Favorlang–Taokas
    • Limaish
      (pAN *RaCep 'five' replaced by *lima 'hand'; *Ca~ reduplication to form the series of numerals for counting humans)
      • Thao–Atayalic
      • Enemish
        (additive 'five-and-one' or 'twice-three' replaced by reduplicated *Nem-Nem > *emnem [*Nem 'three' is reflected in Basay, Siraya and Makatao]; pAN *kawaS 'year, sky' replaced by *CawiN)
        • Siraya
        • Walu-Siwaish
          (*walu 'eight' and *Siwa 'nine' from *RaCepat(e)lu 'five-and-three' and *RaCepiSepat 'five-and-four')
          • West WS: Papora–Hoanya
            (pAN *Sapuy 'fire' replaced by *[Z]apuR 'cooking fire'; pAN *qudem 'black replaced by *abi[Z]u, found in MP as 'blue')
          • Central WS
            (pAN *isa etc. 'one' replaced by *Ca~CiNi (reduplication of 'alone') in the human-counting series; pAN *iCit 'ten' replaced by *ma-sa-N 'one times'.)
            • Bunun
            • Rukai–Tsouic
              (CV~ reduplication in human-counting series replaced with competing pAN noun-marker *u- [unknown whether Bunun once had the same]; eleven lexical innovations such as *cáni 'one', *kəku 'leg')
          • East WS (pEWS ca. 4500 BP)
            (innovations *baCaq-an 'ten'; *nanum 'water' alongside pAN *daNum)
            • Kavalanic languages
            • Puluqish
              (innovative *sa-puluq 'ten', from *sa- 'one' + 'separate, set aside'; use of prefixes *paka- and *maka- to mark abilitative)
              • Northern: Ami–Puyuma
                (*sasay 'one'; *mukeCep 'ten' for the human and non-human series; *ukak 'bone', *kuCem 'cloud')
              • Paiwan
              • Southern Austronesian (pSAN ca. 4000 BP)
                (linker *atu 'and' > *at after *sa-puluq in numerals 11–19; lexical innovations such as *baqbaq 'mouth', *qa-sáuŋ 'canine tooth', *qi(d)zúR 'saliva', *píntu 'door', *-ŋel 'deaf')
                • Kra-Dai
                • Malayo-Polynesian

Malayo-Polynesian

The Malayo-Polynesian languages are—among other things—characterized by certain sound changes, such as the mergers of Proto-Austronesian (PAN) *t/*C to Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (PMP) *t, and PAN *n/*N to PMP *n, and the shift of PAN *S to PMP *h.

There appear to have been two great migrations of Austronesian languages that quickly covered large areas, resulting in multiple local groups with little large-scale structure. The first was Malayo-Polynesian, distributed across the Malay archipelago and Melanesia. The second migration was that of the Oceanic languages into Polynesia and Micronesia.

History

From the standpoint of historical linguistics, the place of origin (in linguistic terminology, Urheimat) of the Austronesian languages (Proto-Austronesian language) is most likely the main island of Taiwan, also known as Formosa; on this island the deepest divisions in Austronesian are found along small geographic distances, among the families of the native Formosan languages.

According to Robert Blust, the Formosan languages form nine of the ten primary branches of the Austronesian language family. Comrie (2001:28) noted this when he wrote:

... the internal diversity among the... Formosan languages... is greater than that in all the rest of Austronesian put together, so there is a major genetic split within Austronesian between Formosan and the rest... Indeed, the genetic diversity within Formosan is so great that it may well consist of several primary branches of the overall Austronesian family.

At least since Sapir (1968), writing in 1949, 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. For example, English in North America has large numbers of speakers, but relatively low dialectal diversity, while English in Great Britain has much higher diversity; such low linguistic variety by Sapir's thesis suggests a more recent spread of English in North America. 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. For a recent dissenting analysis, see Peiros (2004).

The protohistory of the Austronesian people can be traced farther back through time. To get an idea of the original homeland of the populations ancestral to the Austronesian peoples (as opposed to strictly linguistic arguments), evidence from archaeology and population genetics may be adduced. 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., Bellwood 1997) 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 Austronesian languages to the Sino-Tibetan ones, as proposed for example by Sagart (2002), is a minority one. As Fox (2004:8) states:

Implied in... discussions of subgrouping [of Austronesian languages] is a broad consensus that the homeland of the Austronesians was in Taiwan. This homeland area may have also included the P'eng-hu (Pescadores) islands between Taiwan and China and possibly even sites on the coast of mainland China, especially if one were to view the early Austronesians as a population of related dialect communities living in scattered coastal settlements.

Linguistic analysis of the Proto-Austronesian language stops at the western shores of Taiwan; any related mainland language(s) have not survived. The only exceptions, including the Chamic languages, derive from more recent migration to the mainland. However, according to Ostapirat's interpretation of the seriously discussed Austro-Tai hypothesis, the Kra–Dai languages (also known as Tai–Kadai) are exactly those related mainland languages.

Hypothesized relations

Genealogical links have been proposed between Austronesian and various families of East and Southeast Asia.

Austro-Tai

The Austro-Tai language family is supported by Weera Ostapirat, Roger Blench, and Laurent Sagart based on the traditional comparative method. Ostapirat (2005) proposes a series of regular correspondences linking the two families and assumes a primary split, with Kra-Dai speakers being the people who stayed behind in their Chinese homeland. The following table shows the final consonant correspondences proposed in Ostapirat (2005).

Blench (2004) suggests that, if the connection is valid, the relationship is unlikely to be one of two sister families. Rather, he suggests that proto-Kra-Dai speakers were Austronesians who migrated to Hainan Island and back to the mainland from the northern Philippines, and that their distinctiveness results from radical restructuring following contact with Hmong–Mien and Sinitic.

An earlier proposal linking Austronesian and the Kra-Dai languages of the southeastern continental Asian mainland by Paul K. Benedict included the Japonic languages as well. However, Benedict's work on Austro-Tai is plagued by issues in linguistic evidence and methodology, and was used to dismiss the Austro-Tai hypothesis until the recent work by Ostapirat and others.

Austric

A link with the Austroasiatic languages in an 'Austric' phylum is based mostly on typological evidence. However, there is also morphological evidence of a connection between the conservative Nicobarese languages and Austronesian languages of the Philippines. Robert Blust supports the hypothesis which connects the lower Yangtze neolithic Austro-Tai entity with the rice-cultivating Austro-Asiatic cultures, assuming the center of East Asian rice domestication, and putative Austric homeland, to be located in the Yunnan/Burma border area. Under that view, there was an east-west genetic alignment, resulting from a rice-based population expansion, in the southern part of East Asia: Austroasiatic-Kra-Dai-Austronesian, with unrelated Sino-Tibetan occupying a more northerly tier.

Sino-Austronesian

French linguist and Sinologist Laurent Sagart considers the Austronesian languages to be related to the Sino-Tibetan languages, and also groups the Kra–Dai languages as more closely related to the Malayo-Polynesian languages. Sagart argues for a north-south genetic relationship between Chinese and Austronesian, based on sound correspondences in the basic vocabulary and morphological parallels. Laurent Sagart (2017) concludes that the possession of the two kinds of millets in Taiwanese Austronesian languages (not just Setaria, as previously thought) places the pre-Austronesians in northeastern China, adjacent to the probable Sino-Tibetan homeland. Sagart also groups the Austronesian languages in a recursive-like fashion, placing Kra-Dai as a sister branch of Malayo-Polynesian. His methodology has been found to be spurious by his peers.

Japanese

Several linguists have proposed that Japanese is genetically related to the Austronesian family, cf. Benedict (1990), Matsumoto (1975), Miller (1967).

Some other linguists think it is more plausible that Japanese is not genetically related to the Austronesian languages, but instead was influenced by an Austronesian substratum or adstratum.

Those who propose this scenario suggest that the Austronesian family once covered the islands to the north as well as to the south. Martine Robbeets (2017) claims that Japanese genetically belongs to the "Transeurasian" (= Macro-Altaic) languages, but underwent lexical influence from "para-Austronesian", a presumed sister language of Proto-Austronesian.

Ongan

Blevins (2007) proposed that the Austronesian and the Ongan protolanguage are the descendants of an Austronesian–Ongan protolanguage. This view is not supported by mainstream linguists and remains very controversial. Robert Blust rejects Blevins' proposal as far-fetched and based solely on chance resemblances and methodologically flawed comparisons.

Writing systems

Most Austronesian languages have Latin-based writing systems today. Some non-Latin-based writing systems include:

• Brahmi script
  • Kawi script
    • Balinese alphabet – used to write Balinese, Kawi, Malay, Sasak, and Sanskrit.
    • Batak alphabet – used to write several Batak languages.
    • Baybayin – used to write Tagalog and several Philippine languages.
    • Bima alphabet – once used to write the Bima language.
    • Buhid alphabet – used to write Buhid language.
    • Hanunó'o alphabet – used to write Hanuno'o language.
    • Javanese script – used to write the Javanese language and several neighbouring languages like Madurese.
    • Kerinci alphabet (Kaganga) – used to write the Kerinci language.
    • Kulitan alphabet – used to write the Kapampangan language.
    • Lampung alphabet – used to write Lampung and Komering.
    • Lontara alphabet – used to write the Buginese, Makassarese and several languages of Sulawesi.
    • Sundanese script – standardized script based on Old Sundanese script, used to write the Sundanese language.
    • Rejang alphabet – used to write the Rejang language.
    • Rencong alphabet – once used to write the Malay language in Sumatra.
    • Tagbanwa alphabet – once used to write various Palawan languages.
    • Lota alphabet – used to write the Ende-Li'o language.
  • Cham alphabet – used to write Cham language.
  • Thai script – used to write Pattani Malay language.
• Arabic script
  • Pegon alphabet – used to write Javanese, Sundanese and Madurese as well as several smaller neighbouring languages.
  • Jawi alphabet – used to write Malay, Acehnese, Banjar, Minangkabau, Maguindanao, Tausug, Western Cham and others.
  • Sorabe alphabet – once used to write several dialects of Malagasy language.
• Hangul – used to write the Cia-Cia language.
• Dunging – used to write the Iban language
• Avoiuli – used to write the Raga language.
• Eskayan – used to write the Eskayan language, a secret language based on Boholano.
• Woleai script (Caroline Island script) – used to write the Carolinian language (Refaluwasch).
• Rongorongo – possibly used to write the Rapa Nui language.
• Gagarit Abada – used to write Dusunic languages but it was not widely used.
• Gangga Melayu – used to write Perak Malay .
• Sorang Sompeng – used to write Sora.
• Braille – used in Filipino, Malay, Indonesian, Tolai, Motu, Māori, Samoan, Malagasy, and many other Austronesian languages.

Comparison charts

Below are two charts comparing list of numbers of 1–10 and thirteen words in Austronesian languages; spoken in Taiwan, the Philippines, the Mariana Islands, Indonesia, Malaysia, Chams or Champa (in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam), East Timor, Papua, New Zealand, Hawaii, Madagascar, Borneo, Kiribati, Caroline Islands, and Tuvalu.