The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. The Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken by the Austronesian peoples outside of Taiwan, in the island nations of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean, with a smaller number in continental Asia in the areas near the Malay Peninsula, with Cambodia, Vietnam and the Chinese island Hainan as the northwest geographic outlier. Malagasy, spoken on the island of Madagascar off the eastern coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean, is the furthest western outlier.
Malay is an Austronesian language that is an official language of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, and that is also spoken in East Timor and parts of Thailand. Altogether, it is spoken by 290 million people across Maritime Southeast Asia.
Minangkabau is an Austronesian language spoken by the Minangkabau of West Sumatra, the western part of Riau, South Aceh Regency, the northern part of Bengkulu and Jambi, also in several cities throughout Indonesia by migrated Minangkabau. The language is also a lingua franca along the western coastal region of the province of North Sumatra, and is even used in parts of Aceh, where the language is called Aneuk Jamee.
The Sasak language is spoken by the Sasak ethnic group, which make up the majority of the population of Lombok, an island in the West Nusa Tenggara province of Indonesia. It is closely related to the Balinese and Sumbawa languages spoken on adjacent islands, and is part of the Austronesian language family. Sasak has no official status; the national language, Indonesian, is the official and literary language in areas where Sasak is spoken.
Lampung or Lampungic is an Austronesian language or dialect cluster with around 1.5 million native speakers, who primarily belong to the Lampung ethnic group of southern Sumatra, Indonesia. It is divided into two or three varieties: Lampung Api, Lampung Nyo, and Komering. The latter is sometimes included in Lampung Api, sometimes treated as an entirely separate language. Komering people see themselves as ethnically separate from, but related to, Lampung people.
The Ibanic languages are a branch of the Malayic languages indigenous to western Borneo. They are spoken by the Ibans and related groups in East Malaysia and the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan. Other Dayak languages, called Land Dayak, which are not Ibanic, are found in the northwest corner of Kalimantan, between Ibanic and non-Ibanic Malayic languages such as Kendayan and the Malay dialects of Sarawak and Pontianak.
The Sigulai language is an Austronesian language spoken on Simeulue island off the western coast of Sumatra in Indonesia. It belongs to the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian languages. Sikule is one of Northwest Sumatra–Barrier Islands languages, which are a sub-group of Western Malayo-Polynesian.
The Barito languages are around twenty Austronesian languages of Indonesia (Borneo), plus Malagasy, the national language of Madagascar, and the Sama–Bajaw languages around the Sulu Archipelago. They are named after the Barito River located in South Kalimantan, Indonesia.
The Greater North Borneo languages are a proposed subgroup of the Austronesian language family. The subgroup historically covers languages that are spoken throughout much of Borneo and Sumatra, as well as parts of Java, and Mainland Southeast Asia. The Greater North Borneo hypothesis was first proposed by Robert Blust (2010) and further elaborated by Alexander Smith. The evidence presented for this proposal are solely lexical. Despite its name, this branch has been now widespread within the Maritime Southeast Asia region.
The Northwest Sumatra–Barrier Islands languages are a group of Malayo-Polynesian languages spoken by the Batak and related peoples in the interior of North Sumatra and by the Nias, Mentawai people, and others on the Barrier islands off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia.
The Malayo-Sumbawan languages are a proposed subgroup of the Austronesian languages that unites the Malayic and Chamic languages with the languages of Java and the western Lesser Sunda Islands, except for Javanese. If valid, it would be the largest demonstrated family of Malayo-Polynesian outside Oceanic. The Malayo-Sumbawan subgroup is however not universally accepted, and is rejected e.g. by Blust (2010) and Smith (2017), who supported the Greater North Borneo and Western Indonesian hypotheses. In a 2019 paper published in Oceanic Linguistics, Adelaar accepted both of these groupings, in addition to Smith's (2018) redefinition of Barito languages as forming a linkage.
The Bali–Sasak–Sumbawa languages are a group of closely related languages spoken in Indonesia in the western Lesser Sunda Islands. The three languages are Balinese on Bali, Sasak on Lombok, and Sumbawa on western Sumbawa.
Isidore Dyen was an American linguist, Professor Emeritus of Malayo-Polynesian and Comparative Linguistics at Yale University. He was one of the foremost scholars in the field of Austronesian linguistics, publishing extensively on the reconstruction of Proto-Austronesian phonology and on subgrouping within the language family, the latter principally by means of lexicostatistics.
The Tamanic languages are a small group of languages of Kapuas Hulu Regency, West Kalimantan:
The Tutong language, also known as Basa Tutong, is a language spoken by approximately 17,000 people in Brunei. It is the main language of the Tutong people, the majority ethnic group in the Tutong District of Brunei.
Kendayan, or Salako (Selako), is a Malayic Dayak language of Borneo. The exact number of speakers remains unknown, but is estimated to be around 350,000.
Keninjal is a Malayic Dayak language of Borneo. Glottolog classifies Keninjal as a Western Malayic Dayak language alongside Kendayan, but Smith (2017) includes it in the Ibanic branch of Malayic based on phonological evidence.
Proto-Malayic is a reconstructed proto-language of the Malayic languages, which are nowadays widespread throughout Maritime Southeast Asia. Like most other proto-languages, Proto-Malayic was not attested in any prior written work. The most extensive study on the proto-language, Proto-Malayic: The Reconstruction of its Phonology and Parts of its Lexicon and Morphology, was done by K. Alexander Adelaar in 1992.
The Moklenic or Moken–Moklen languages consist of a pair of two closely related but distinct languages, namely Moken and Moklen. Larish (1999) establishes the two languages as forming two distinct subgroups of a larger Moken–Moklen branch. Larish (2005) suggests Moklenic as an alternative name for Moken–Moklen, the latter term which was originally used by Larish (1999).
Bernd Nothofer is a German linguist. His primary research interests include Austronesian historical linguistics, Malayic dialectology, and the languages of Indonesia.
