| Western Oceanic | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution | Western Pacific |
| Linguistic classification | Austronesian
|
| Proto-language | Proto-Western Oceanic |
| Subdivisions |
|
| Glottolog | west2818 |
 Western Oceanic | |
The Western Oceanic languages is a linkage of Oceanic languages, proposed and studied by Ross (1988). They make up a majority of the Austronesian languages spoken in New Guinea.
The West Oceanic linkage is made up of three sub-linkages: [1]
The center of dispersal was evidently [ citation needed ]near the Willaumez Peninsula on the north coast of New Britain.
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 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 Admiralty Islands languages are a group of some thirty Oceanic languages spoken on the Admiralty Islands. They may include Yapese, which has proven difficult to classify.
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. Bali is one of the most conservative languages.
The North New Guinea languages of Papua New Guinea and Indonesia form a possible linkage of Western Oceanic languages. They have been in heavy contact with Papuan languages.
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 Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian (CEMP) languages form a proposed branch of the Malayo-Polynesian languages consisting of over 700 languages.
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 Sarmi-Jayapura Bay languages consist of half a dozen languages spoken on the northern coast of Papua province of Indonesia:
The Schouten languages are a linkage of Austronesian languages in northern Papua New Guinea. They are in contact with various North Papuan languages, particularly the Skou and some Torricelli 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.
Lungalunga, frequently though ambiguously called Minigir, is spoken by a small number of the Tolai people of Papua New Guinea, who live on the Gazelle Peninsula in East New Britain Province. It is often referred to in the linguistics literature as the Tolai "dialect" with an.
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.
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.
Malcolm David Ross is an Australian linguist. He is the emeritus professor of linguistics at the Australian National University.
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.
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.