Reclassification of Austronesian Language Family

According to the classification on Ethnologue website, Austronesian languages can be further divided into two sub-languages, one is Formosa in Taiwan Province Province, and the other is Malay-Polynesian. The former has 23 languages, which can be further divided into three systems: Atayal, Paiwani and Zoyik. The latter has 65,438+0,239 languages, which can be further divided into "Central-East Malay-Polynesian", "West Malay-Polynesian" and two unclassified languages (Ethnology: World Languages 2004).

Interestingly, besides those quoted from Ethnography, there seem to be other statements about the relationship between Austronesian and Malay-Polynesian languages. According to Diamond(2000), Austronesian language family has ten sub-languages, nine of which are in Taiwan Province Province, and the last one is Malay-Porini West Asian. That is to say, Malaya-Porini West Asian is regarded as a subfamily of Austronesian language family, although its classification method is not consistent with that listed in Ethnologue (see also Wikipedia 2004).

However, it seems that most related documents in Taiwan Province Province equate "Malay-Porini West Asians" with "Austronesian language family". For example, the Academia Sinica in Taiwan (1996) has the following statement: "Austronesian language family, also known as Malay-Polynesian language (sic), is the only large language family mainly distributed on islands in the world." The Pingpu Cultural Information Network (nd, B) of Academia Sinica also said, "The languages used by the aborigines living in Taiwan Province Province, namely Pingpu and Gaoshan, are not only closely related to each other, but also related to many languages in the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean islands, forming what the academic circles call Austronesian.

Some linguists believe that Thai may also be regarded as a part of the extended definition of Austronesian language family, although most scholars still seem to classify it as "Tai Ka Dai (Zhuang Dong)". Others try to write the relationship between Austronesian Language Family, South Asian Language Family and Tai-Ka Language Family (Zhuang-Dong Language Family), and think that they should form a larger Austronesian language family. However, neither of these two statements seems to be accepted by most linguists. The origin of Austronesian language is a hot topic in academic research. Earlier statements, including different statements that language originated from Macronesia, south of the Yangtze River in China, Indochina Peninsula and West New Guinea (for a brief review of these statements, please refer to the Pingpu Cultural Information Network nd, C of Academia Sinica). However, since shutter and Mark published a paper in 1975, demonstrating that Taiwan Province Province is the most likely birthplace of Austronesian, international academic circles have gradually accepted this statement (Shutter and Marc1975). Especially after Peter Bellwood published a paper on this issue in Scientific American on 199 1, it almost became the knowledge of most scholars that Austronesian originated in Taiwan Province Province (Bellwood1991; See also Diamond 2000). However, in recent years, there is a new saying that the origin of this language may be in Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia or nearby islands (see Microsoft 2004).

Bellwood believes that Austronesians, who speak Austronesian, come from the Asian continent and probably belong to the same family as Jintai people or South Asians. After separation, they came to Taiwan Province Province, about 6,000 years ago. About 5,000 years ago, it began to spread southward from Taiwan Province Province to the Philippine Islands, mainly distributed in the northern part of Luzon Island. Then it went to Borneo and eastern Indonesia, about 4500 years ago. Then it spread eastward and westward, to the Mariana Islands (Guam and Saipan) in the east, to parts of the South Pacific, and to the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra in the west, about 3200 years ago. The next step is to spread to the Caroline Islands in Melanesia in the central Pacific Ocean. Then he went east to Porini and West Asia, about 300 AD. Today, the Maori in New Zealand are the latest immigrants, around 800 AD. Scholars have talked about the homologous relationship between Austronesian language family and other language families, and there are four different hypotheses at present:

1, Austronesian languages have no homology with other languages (traditional view). Many historical linguists hold this view.

2. Wilhelm Schmidt1904, a German missionary, proposed that Austronesian languages are homologous to South Asian languages.

3. American scholar Dahl 1970 pointed out that Austronesian language family is homologous to Indo-European language family.

4. French scholar Xia Jiaer proposed in 1990 that Austronesian and Sino-Tibetan languages are homologous, which was recognized by Professor Xing Gongwan in China.