| Remote Oceanic | |
|---|---|
| (proposed) | |
| Geographic distribution | Oceania, Polynesia |
| Linguistic classification | Austronesian
|
| Subdivisions | |
| Glottolog | None |
 | |
A family of some 200 Remote Oceanic languages has traditionally been posited as a subgroup of the Central-Eastern Oceanic languages. However, it was abandoned by Lynch, Ross, & Crowley in 2002, as no defining features of the family could be found.
Its components are:
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, Western Fijian 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 family of Central Pacific or Central Oceanic languages, also known as Fijian–Polynesian, are a branch of the Oceanic languages.
The over 200 Central–Eastern Oceanic languages form a branch of the Oceanic language family within the Austronesian languages.
The family of Southeast Solomonic languages forms a branch of the Oceanic languages. It consists of some 26 languages covering the South East Solomon Islands, from the tip of Santa Isabel to Makira. The fact that there is little diversity amongst these languages, compared to groups of similar size in Melanesia, suggests that they dispersed in the relatively recent past. Bugotu is one of the most conservative languages.
The Admiralty Islands languages are a group of some thirty Oceanic languages. They may include Yapese, which has proven difficult to classify.
The nine South Vanuatu languages form a family of the Southern Oceanic languages, spoken in Tafea Province of Vanuatu.
The Western Oceanic languages is a linkage of Oceanic languages, proposed and studied by Ross (1988).
The twenty Micronesian languages form a family of Oceanic languages. Micronesian languages are known for their lack of plain labial consonants; they have instead two series, palatalized and labio-velarized labials.
The Meso-Melanesian languages are a linkage of Oceanic languages spoken in the large Melanesian islands of New Ireland and the Solomon Islands east of New Guinea.
The Ngero–Vitiaz languages form a linkage of Austronesian languages in northern Papua New Guinea. They are spoken, from west to east, in Madang Province, Morobe Province, and New Britain.
The Manus languages are a subgroup of about two dozen Oceanic languages located on Manus Island and nearby offshore islands in Manus Province of Papua New Guinea. The exact number of languages is difficult to determine because they form a dialect continuum. The name 'Manus' originally designated an ethnic group whose members spoke closely related languages and whose coastal dwellers tended to build their houses on stilts out over the sea.
The Papuan Tip languages are a branch of the Western Oceanic languages consisting of 60 languages.
The Huon Gulf languages are Western Oceanic languages spoken primarily in Morobe Province of Papua New Guinea. They may form a group of the North New Guinea languages, perhaps within the Ngero–Vitiaz branch of that family.
The Southern Oceanic languages are a linkage of Oceanic languages spoken in Vanuatu and New Caledonia. It was proposed by Lynch, Ross, and Crowley in 2002 and supported by later studies. They consider it to be a linkage rather than a language group with a clearly defined internal nested structure.
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.
Vitu or Muduapa is an Oceanic language spoken by about 7,000 people on the islands northwest of the coast of West New Britain in Papua New Guinea.
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.
Utupua Island is an island in the Santa Cruz Islands, located 66 km to the Southeast of the main Santa Cruz group, between Vanikoro and Santa Cruz proper. This island belongs administratively to the Temotu Province of the Solomon Islands.
The family of Northwest Solomonic languages is a branch of the Oceanic languages. It includes the Austronesian languages of Bougainville and Buka in Papua New Guinea, and of Choiseul, New Georgia, and Santa Isabel in Solomon Islands.
The Niwer Mil language is spoken by 9,033 people on Boang Island, Malendok Island, Lif Island and Tefa Island in the Tanga Islands, Namatanai District of New Ireland Province in Papua New Guinea. It was split from the Tangga language in 2013. It is one of the languages that form the St George linkage group of Meso-Melanesian languages.