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Look up Category:Proto-Polynesian language in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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| Proto-Polynesian | |
|---|---|
| PPn | |
| Reconstruction of | Polynesian languages |
| Region | Tonga, Samoa, and nearby islands |
Reconstructed ancestors | |
Proto-Polynesian (abbreviated PPn) is the hypothetical proto-language from which all the modern Polynesian languages descend. It is a daughter language of the Proto-Austronesian language. Historical linguists have reconstructed the language using the comparative method, in much the same manner as with Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Uralic. This same method has also been used to support the archaeological and ethnographic evidence which indicates that the ancestral homeland of the people who spoke Proto-Polynesian was in the vicinity of Tonga, Samoa, and nearby islands. [1]
Proto-Polynesian has a small phonological inventory, with 13 consonants and 5 vowels. [2]
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Voiceless stop | *p | *t | *k | *ʔ |
| Nasal | *m | *n | *ŋ | |
| Fricative | *f | *s | *h | |
| Trill | *r | |||
| Lateral | *l | |||
| Glide | *w |
Proto-Polynesian had five vowels, /a/ /e/ /i/ /o/ /u/, with no length distinction. In a number of daughter languages, successive sequences of vowels came together to produce long vowels and diphthongs, and in some languages these sounds later became phonemic. [3]
| Proto-Polynesian | *p | *t | *k | *ʔ | *m | *n | *ŋ | *w | *f | *s | *h | *l | *r | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tongan | p | t | k | ʔ | m | n | ŋ | v | f | h | l | l/Ø | |||
| Niuean | Ø | ||||||||||||||
| Niuafoʻou | ʔ/Ø | h | h/Ø | ||||||||||||
| Proto-Nuclear-Polynesian | *p | *t | *k | *ʔ | *m | *n | *ŋ | *w | *f | *s | *Ø | *l | |||
| Samoan | p | t~k | ʔ | Ø | m | n | ŋ | v | f | s | Ø | l | |||
| East Futunan | t | k | ʔ/Ø | ||||||||||||
| Tikopian | Ø | ɾ | |||||||||||||
| Nukuoroan | h | l | |||||||||||||
| Proto-Eastern-Polynesian | *p | *t | *k | *ʔ/Ø | *m | *n | *ŋ | *w | *f | *h | *Ø | *l | |||
| Rapa Nui | p | t | k | ʔ/Ø | m | n | ŋ | v | v/h | h | Ø | ɾ | |||
| MVA, Cook Islands Māori | Ø | ʔ/v | ʔ | ||||||||||||
| Tuamotuan | f/h/v | h | |||||||||||||
| Māori | w | ɸ/h | |||||||||||||
| Tahitian | ʔ | ʔ | v | f/v/h | |||||||||||
| N. Marquesan | k | k | h | ʔ | |||||||||||
| S. Marquesan | ʔ | n | f/h | ||||||||||||
| Hawaiian | k | v/w | h/w | l | |||||||||||
The following is a table of some sample vocabulary as it is represented orthographically in various languages. [4] All instances of ⟨ʻ⟩ represent a glottal stop, IPA /ʔ/. All instances of ⟨ng⟩ and Samoan ⟨g⟩ represent the single phoneme /ŋ/. The letter ⟨r⟩ in all cases represents voiced alveolar tap /ɾ/, not /r/.
| Proto-Polynesian | Tongan | Niuean | Samoan | Rapa Nui | Tahitian | Māori | Cook Islands Māori | S. Marquesan | Hawaiian | English |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| *taŋata | tangata | tangata | tagata | tangata | ta'ata | tangata | tangata | ʻenata | kanaka | person |
| *sina | hina | hina | sina | hina | hinahina | hina | ʻina | hina | grey-haired | |
| *kanahe | kanahe | kanahe | ʻanae | 'anae | kanae | kanae | ʻanae | mullet | ||
| *tiale | siale | tiale | tiale | tiare | tiare | tīare | tiare | kiele | flower | |
| *waka | vaka | vaka | vaʻa | vaka | va'a | waka | vaka | vaka | waʻa | canoe |
| *fafine | fefine | fifine | fafine | vi'e/vahine | vahine | wahine | vaʻine | vehine | wahine | woman |
| *matuʔa | mātu'a | motua | matua | matuʻa | metua | matua | metua, matua | motua | makua | parent |
| *rua | ua | ua | lua | rua | rua [5] | rua | rua | ʻua | lua | two |
| *tolu | tolu | tolu | tolu | toru | toru | toru | toru | toʻu | kolu | three |
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, Malay Peninsula, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan. There are also a number of speakers in continental Asia. They are spoken by about 386 million people. This makes it the fifth-largest language family by number of speakers. Major Austronesian languages include Malay, Javanese, Sundanese, Tagalog (Filipino), Malagasy and Cebuano. According to some estimates, the family contains 1,257 languages, which is the second most of any language family.
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 in the island of Madagascar off the eastern coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean, is the furthest western outlier.
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In historical linguistics, a linkage is a network of related dialects or languages that formed from a gradual diffusion and differentiation of a proto-language.
Andrew Kenneth Pawley, FRSNZ, FAHA, is Emeritus Professor at the School of Culture, History & Language of the College of Asia & the Pacific at the Australian National University.
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Proto-Oceanic is a proto-language that historical linguists since Otto Dempwolff have reconstructed as the hypothetical common ancestor of the Oceanic subgroup of the Austronesian language family. Proto-Oceanic is a descendant of the Proto-Austronesian language (PAN), the common ancestor of the Austronesian languages.
Proto-Austronesian is a proto-language. It is the reconstructed ancestor of the Austronesian languages, one of the world's major language families. Proto-Austronesian is assumed to have begun to diversify c. 4000 BCE – c. 3500 BCE in Taiwan.
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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.
Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (PMP) is the reconstructed ancestor of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, which is by far the largest branch of the Austronesian language family. Proto-Malayo-Polynesian is ancestral to all Austronesian languages spoken outside Taiwan, as well as the Yami language on Taiwan's Orchid Island. The first systematic reconstruction of Proto-Austronesian ("Uraustronesisch") by Otto Dempwolff was based on evidence from languages outside of Taiwan, and was therefore actually the first reconstruction of what is now known as Proto-Malayo-Polynesian.
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