| Oceanic
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Geographic
distribution: |
Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia |
Genetic
classification: |
Austronesian
Malayo-Polynesian (MP)
Nuclear MP
Central-Eastern MP
Eastern MP
Oceanic |
| Subdivisions: |
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The branches of Oceanic
Orange = Admiralties and Yapese
Yellow-orange = St. Matthias
Green = Western Oceanic
Violet = Temotu
The rest are Central-Eastern:
Dark red = Southeast Solomons
Blue = Southern Oceanic
Pink = Micronesian
Ocher = Fijian-Polynesian (not shown: Rapa Nui)
The black ovals at the northwestern limit of Micronesian are the Sunda-Sulawesi languages Palauan and Chamorro. The black circles in with the green are offshore Papuan languages.
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The Oceanic languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, containing approximately 450 languages. The area occupied by speakers of these languages includes Polynesia as well as much of Melanesia and Micronesia.
Despite covering such a vast area, Oceanic languages are spoken by less than two million people. The largest individual Oceanic languages are Samoan and Eastern Fijian, with over 300,000 speakers. Kiribati (Gilbertese), Tongan, and perhaps Kuanua (Tolai) have 100,000 speakers apiece.
The common ancestor which is reconstructed for this group of languages is called Proto Oceanic (abbr. POc). The Oceanic languages were first shown to be a language family by Sidney Herbert Ray in 1896.
Classification
Notes
- ^ Yapese may in fact be an Admiralty Islands language.
- ^ This subgroup was identified by Ross and Næss (2007). Note that its internal structure is still tentative.
- ^ These were previously argued to be Papuan (that is, non-Austronesian) languages.
- ^ This group may in fact be two branches, Utupua and Vanikoro; Utupua-Vanikoro was previously classified with Central-Eastern Oceanic.
References
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