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The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family.
The approximately 450 Oceanic languages are a branch of the Austronesian languages. The area occupied by speakers of these languages includes Polynesia, as well as much of Melanesia and Micronesia. Though covering a vast area, Oceanic languages are spoken by only two million people. The largest individual Oceanic languages are Eastern Fijian with over 600,000 speakers, and Samoan with an estimated 400,000 speakers. The Gilbertese (Kiribati), Tongan, Tahitian, Māori and Tolai languages each have over 100,000 speakers. The common ancestor which is reconstructed for this group of languages is called Proto-Oceanic.
The nine South Vanuatu languages form a family of the Southern Oceanic languages, spoken in Tafea Province of Vanuatu.
The Southern Oceanic languages are a linkage of Oceanic languages spoken in Vanuatu and New Caledonia. It was proposed by John Lynch in 1995 and supported by later studies. It appears to be a linkage rather than a language family with a clearly defined internal nested structure.
The Republic of Vanuatu has the world's highest linguistic density per capita. Despite being a country with a population of less than 300,000, Vanuatu is home to 138 indigenous Oceanic languages.
The South Bougainville or East Bougainville languages are a small language family spoken on the island of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea. They were classified as East Papuan languages by Stephen Wurm, but this does not now seem tenable, and was abandoned in Ethnologue (2009).
Alexandre François is a French linguist specialising in the description and study of the indigenous languages of Melanesia. He belongs to Lattice, a research centre of the CNRS and École Normale Supérieure dedicated to linguistics.
The North Vanuatu languages form a linkage of Southern Oceanic languages spoken in northern Vanuatu.
Kiai is an Oceanic language spoken by about 450 people in the central highlands of Espiritu Santo island, in Vanuatu.
The Malakula languages are a group of Central Vanuatu languages spoken on Malakula Island in central Vanuatu. Unlike some earlier classifications, linguist and Oceanic languages specialist John Lynch (2016) considered the Malakula languages to form a coherent group.
The Espiritu Santo languages are a group of North Vanuatu languages spoken on Espiritu Santo Island in northern Vanuatu. Tryon (2010) considers the Espiritu Santo languages to be a coherent group.
The Torres–Banks languages form a linkage of Southern Oceanic languages spoken in the Torres Islands and Banks Islands of northern Vanuatu.
Moiso is an Espiritu Santo language of Vanuatu. It is spoken in Moriuli village in central Santo Island by about 100 people.
Kene is an Espiritu Santo language of Vanuatu with 300 speakers.
Daruru is an Espiritu Santo language of Vanuatu. There are perhaps 100 speakers in Pelmol village of western Santo Island.
Retlatur is an Espiritu Santo language of Vanuatu. There are about 100 speakers in Tanovusivusi village of southern Santo Island.
Atin is an Espiritu Santo language of Vanuatu. There are 120 speakers in Nambauk (Patunfarambu) and Fumatal villages of eastern Santo Island.
Farnanto is an Espiritu Santo language of Vanuatu. There are about 100 speakers in Nambauk, Tanmet, and Tafua villages of eastern Santo Island.
Fanafo is an Espiritu Santo language of Vanuatu. It is spoken by 20 people in Vanafo and Butmas villages of eastern Santo Island.
Bura is an Espiritu Santo language of Vanuatu with 300 speakers.
References
- 1 2 Clark, Ross (2009). Leo Tuai: A comparative lexical study of North and Central Vanuatu languages. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. doi:10.15144/PL-603. ISSN 1448-8310.
- ↑ Lynch, John (2018). "Final Consonants and the Status of Proto-North-Central Vanuatu". Journal of the Linguistic Society of Papua New Guinea. 36. ISSN 0023-1959.
- ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2019). "Glottolog". 4.0. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
- ↑ François, Alexandre (2011), "Social ecology and language history in the northern Vanuatu linkage: A tale of divergence and convergence", Journal of Historical Linguistics, 1 (2): 175–246, doi:10.1075/jhl.1.2.03fra, hdl: 1885/29283
- ↑ Tryon, Darrell. 2010. The languages of Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu. In John Bowden and Nikolaus P. Himmelmann and Malcolm Ross (eds.), A journey through Austronesian and Papuan linguistic and cultural space: papers in honour of Andrew K. Pawley, 283–290. Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University.