The Austronesians in History: Common Origins and Diverse Transformations

Bellwood, Peter; Fox, James J.; Tryon, Darrell (September 2006). "The Austronesians in History: Common Origins and Diverse Transformations". In Bellwood, Peter; Fox, James J.; Tryon, Darrell (eds.). The Austronesians in History: Common Origins and Diverse Transformations (PDF). Canberra, Australia: ANU Press. doi:10.22459/A.09.2006.01. ISBN 978-0-7315-2132-6.

Abstract: The Austronesian languages form a single and relatively close-knit family, similar in its degree of internal diversity and time depth to other major language families such as Austroasiatic, Uto-Aztecan and Indo-European. Prior to AD 1500 the Austronesian languages belonged to the most widespread language family in the world, with a distribution extending more than half way around the globe from Madagascar to Easter Island. Today, Austronesian-speaking peoples comprise most or all of the indigenous populations of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Madagascar. Austronesian languages are also found on Taiwan (the possible homeland of the first Austronesians), in parts of southern Vietnam and Cambodia, in the Mergui Archipelago off the coast of Burma, and on Hainan Island in southern China. Further to the east, Austronesian languages are spoken in some of the coastal areas of Papua New Guinea, in New Britain and New Ireland, and down the Melanesian chain of islands through the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu as far as New Caledonia and Fiji. From there they extend eastwards to include all of the languages of Polynesia and northwards to take in all of the languages of Micronesia.

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MAG: 2209060272
OpenAlex: W2209060272