The approximately 450 Oceanic languages are a branch of the Austronesian languages. The area occupied by speakers of these languages includes

Polynesia Polynesia () "many" and νῆσος () "island"), to, Polinisia; mi, Porinihia; haw, Polenekia; fj, Polinisia; sm, Polenisia; rar, Porinetia; ty, Pōrīnetia; tvl, Polenisia; tkl, Polenihia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of ...

, as well as much of

Melanesia Melanesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It extends from Indonesia's New Guinea in the west to Fiji in the east, and includes the Arafura Sea. The region includes the four independent countries of Fiji, Va ...

and

Micronesia Micronesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, consisting of about 2,000 small islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It has a close shared cultural history with three other island regions: the Philippines to the west, Polynesia to the east, and ...

. 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 Gilbertese or taetae ni Kiribati, also Kiribati (sometimes ''Kiribatese''), is an Austronesian language spoken mainly in Kiribati. It belongs to the Micronesian branch of the Oceanic languages. The word ''Kiribati'', the current name of the i ...

(Kiribati), Tongan, Tahitian,

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

, Western Fijian and Tolai (

Gazelle Peninsula The Gazelle Peninsula is a large peninsula in northeastern East New Britain, Papua New Guinea located on the island of New Britain within the Bismarck Archipelago, situated in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The Rabaul caldera is located on t ...

) languages each have over 100,000 speakers. The

common ancestor Common descent is a concept in evolutionary biology applicable when one species is the ancestor of two or more species later in time. All living beings are in fact descendants of a unique ancestor commonly referred to as the last universal comm ...

which is reconstructed for this group of languages is called

Proto-Oceanic Proto-Oceanic (abbr. ''POc'') 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 ...

(abbr. "POc").

Classification

The Oceanic languages were first shown to be a

language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hist ...

Sidney Herbert Ray Sidney Herbert Ray (28 May 1858 – 1 January 1939) was a British comparative and descriptive linguist who specialised in Melanesian languages.Papers and field notes relating to his linguistic work are held bSOAS Special Collections/ref> In 189 ...

in 1896 and, besides

Malayo-Polynesian 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 ...

, they are the only established large branch of Austronesian languages. Grammatically, they have been strongly influenced by the

Papuan languages The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian and non-Australian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands, by around 4 million people. It is a strictly geogra ...

of northern

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...

, but they retain a remarkably large amount of Austronesian vocabulary.

Lynch, Ross, & Crowley (2002)

According to Lynch, Ross, & Crowley (2002), Oceanic languages often form linkages with each other. Linkages are formed when languages emerged historically from an earlier

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...

. The linguistic innovations shared by adjacent languages define a chain of intersecting subgroups (a ''linkage''), for which no distinct

proto-language In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unattest ...

can be reconstructed. Lynch, Ross, & Crowley (2002) propose three primary groups of Oceanic languages: * Admiralties linkage: languages of

Manus Island Manus Island is part of Manus Province in northern Papua New Guinea and is the largest of the Admiralty Islands. It is the fifth-largest island in Papua New Guinea, with an area of , measuring around . Manus Island is covered in rugged jungles w ...

, its offshore islands, and small islands to the west. * Western Oceanic (WOc) linkage: languages of the north coast of

Irian Jaya New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torres ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

(excluding the

Admiralties The Admiralty Islands are an archipelago group of 18 islands in the Bismarck Archipelago, to the north of New Guinea in the South Pacific Ocean. These are also sometimes called the Manus Islands, after the largest island. These rainforest-cov ...

) and the western

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capita ...

. West Oceanic is made up of three or four sub-linkages and families: :*? Sarmi–Jayapura linkage: maybe part of the North New Guinea linkage? :* North New Guinea linkage: consists of languages of the north coast of New Guinea, east from

Jayapura Jayapura (formerly Dutch: ''Hollandia'') is the capital and largest city of the Indonesian province of Papua. It is situated on the northern coast of New Guinea island and covers an area of . The city borders the Pacific Ocean and Yos Sudarso ...

. :* Meso-Melanesian linkage: consists of languages of the

Bismarck Archipelago The Bismarck Archipelago (, ) is a group of islands off the northeastern coast of New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean and is part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. Its area is about 50,000 square km. History The first inhabitants o ...

and

. :* Papuan Tip linkage: consists of languages of the tip of the

Papuan Peninsula The Papuan Peninsula, also known as the Bird's Tail Peninsula, is a large peninsula in Papua New Guinea, southeast of the city of Lae, that makes up the southeastern portion of the island of New Guinea. The peninsula is the easternmost extent of t ...

. * Central–Eastern Oceanic (CEOc) linkage: nearly all languages of

Oceania Oceania (, , ) is a region, geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern Hemisphere, Eastern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of ...

not included in the Admiralties and Western Oceanic. Central–Eastern consists of four or five subgroups: :* Southeast Solomonic linkage: of the South East Solomon Islands. :*( Utupua–Vanikoro linkage: later removed to Temotu languages). :* Southern Oceanic linkage: consists of languages of

New Caledonia ) , anthem = "" , image_map = New Caledonia on the globe (small islands magnified) (Polynesia centered).svg , map_alt = Location of New Caledonia , map_caption = Location of New Caledonia , mapsize = 290px , subdivision_type = Sovereign st ...

and

Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (french: link=no, République de Vanuatu; bi, Ripablik blong Vanuatu), is an island country located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of no ...

. :* Central Oceanic linkage: consists of the

Polynesian languages The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family. There are 38 Polynesian languages, representing 7 percent of the 522 Oceanic languages, and 3 percent of the Austron ...

, and the languages of

Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...

. :* Micronesian linkage. The "residues" (as they are called by Lynch, Ross, & Crowley), which do not fit into the three groups above, but are still classified as Oceanic are: * St. Matthias Islands linkage. *?

Yapese language Yapese is a language spoken by the people on the island of Yap (Federated States of Micronesia). It belongs to the Austronesian languages, more specifically to the Oceanic branch of that family. It has been difficult to classify it further, but ...

: of the island of

Yap Yap ( yap, Waqaab) traditionally refers to an island group located in the Caroline Islands of the western Pacific Ocean, a part of Yap State. The name "Yap" in recent years has come to also refer to the state within the Federated States of Micr ...

. Perhaps part of the Admiralties? Ross & Næss (2007) removed Utupua–Vanikoro, from Central–Eastern Oceanic, to a new primary branch of Oceanic: * Temotu linkage, named after the

Temotu Province Temotu (or Te Motu, literally "the island" in Polynesian) is the easternmost province of Solomon Islands. The province was formerly known as Santa Cruz Islands Province. It consists, essentially, of two chains of islands which run parallel to ...

of the

. Blench (2014) considers Utupua and Vanikoro to be two separate branches that are both non-Austronesian.

Ross, Pawley, & Osmond (2016)

Ross, Pawley, & Osmond (2016) propose the following revised rake-like classification of Oceanic, with 9 primary branches.Ross, Malcolm; Pawley, Andrew; Osmond, Meredith (eds)
''The lexicon of Proto Oceanic: The culture and environment of ancestral Oceanic society''
Volume 5
People: body and mind
2016. Asia-Pacific Linguistics (A-PL) 28. ;Oceanic *

Admiralty languages The Admiralty Islands languages are a group of some thirty Oceanic languages spoken on the Admiralty Islands. They may include Yapese language, Yapese, which has proven difficult to classify. Languages According to Lynch, Ross, & Crowley (2002), ...

St Matthias languages The St Matthias languages are a pair of Oceanic languages spoken on the St. Matthias Islands The St Matthias Islands (also known as the Mussau islands) are a small archipelago group of islands in the Bismarck Archipelago, in northern Papua New ...

(

Mussau Mussau Island is the largest island of St Matthias Islands, Papua New Guinea, at . It is currently part of the New Ireland Province of Papua New Guinea. The island is a noted Biodiversity hotspot with pristine primeval Rainforest Rainforest ...

and

Tench The tench or doctor fish (''Tinca tinca'') is a fresh- and brackish-water fish of the order Cypriniformes found throughout Eurasia from Western Europe including the British Isles east into Asia as far as the Ob and Yenisei Rivers. It is also ...

) * Western Oceanic linkage ** Meso-Melanesian linkage **New Guinea Oceanic linkage *** North New Guinea linkage ***

Papuan Tip languages The Papuan Tip languages are a branch of the Western Oceanic languages consisting of 60 languages. Contact All Papuan Tip languages, except Nimoa, Sudest, and the Kilivila languages (all spoken on islands off the coast of mainland Papua New G ...

Temotu languages The Temotu languages, named after Temotu Province of the Solomon Islands, are a branch of Oceanic languages proposed in Ross & Næss (2007) to unify the Reefs – Santa Cruz languages with Utupua and Vanikoro, each a group of three related languag ...

Southeast Solomonic 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 amongs ...

* Southern Oceanic linkage ** North Vanuatu linkage **Nuclear Southern Oceanic linkage *** Central Vanuatu linkage ***

South Vanuatu languages The nine South Vanuatu languages form a family of the Southern Oceanic languages, spoken in Tafea Province ( Tanna, Aneityum, Futuna, Erromango, and Aniwa) of Vanuatu. Languages *Erromango family **Southern: Sie, Sorung† **Northern: Ifo ...

*** Loyalties-New Caledonia languages *

Micronesian languages 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. Languages According to Jackso ...

Central Pacific languages The family of Central Pacific or Central Oceanic languages, also known as Fijian–Polynesian, are a branch of the Oceanic languages. Classification Ross et al. (2002) classify the languages as a linkage as follows: Lynch, John, Malcolm Ross & ...

**Western Central Pacific linkage ***

Rotuman language Rotuman, also referred to as ''Rotunan'', ''Rutuman'' or ''Fäeag Rotuạm'' (citation form: ''Faega Rotuma''), is an Austronesian language spoken by the indigenous people of the South Pacific island group of Rotuma, an island with a Polynesia ...

*** Western Fijian languages **Eastern Central Pacific linkage *** Eastern Fijian languages ***

Non-Austronesian languages

Roger Blench Roger Marsh Blench (born August 1, 1953) is a British linguist, ethnomusicologist and development anthropologist. He has an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and is based in Cambridge, England. He researches, publishes, and works ...

(2014)Blench, Roger. 2014.
Lapita Canoes and Their Multi-Ethnic Crews: Might Marginal Austronesian Languages Be Non-Austronesian?
' Paper presented at the Workshop on the Languages of Papua 3. 20-24 January 2014, Manokwari, West Papua, Indonesia. argues that many languages conventionally classified as Oceanic are in fact non-Austronesian (or " Papuan", which is a geographic rather genetic grouping), including

Utupua Utupua 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 (Nendo Island). This island belongs administratively to the Temotu Province of the Solomon Is ...

and

Vanikoro Vanikoro (sometimes wrongly named ''Vanikolo'') is an island in the Santa Cruz group, located to the Southeast of the main Santa Cruz group. It is part of the Temotu Province of the Solomon Islands. The name ''Vanikoro'' is always used as thoug ...

. Blench doubts that Utupua and Vanikoro are closely related, and thus should not be grouped together. Since each of the three Utupua and three Vanikoro languages are highly distinct from each other, Blench doubts that these languages had diversified on the islands of Utupua and Vanikoro, but had rather migrated to the islands from elsewhere. According to Blench, historically this was due to the Lapita demographic expansion consisting of both Austronesian and non-Austronesian settlers migrating from the Lapita homeland in the

to various islands further to the east. Other languages traditionally classified as Oceanic that Blench (2014) suspects are in fact non-Austronesian include the Kaulong language of

West New Britain West New Britain is a province of Papua New Guinea on the islands of New Britain. The provincial capital is Kimbe. The area of the province is 20,387 km² with a population of 264,264 as of the 2011 census. The province's only land border is ...

, which has a

Proto-Malayo-Polynesian Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (PMP) is the reconstructed ancestor of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, which is by far the largest branch (by current speakers) of the Austronesian language family. Proto-Malayo-Polynesian is ancestral to all Austronesi ...

vocabulary retention rate of only 5%, and languages of the Loyalty Islands that are spoken just to the north of

. Blench (2014) proposes that languages classified as: *''Austronesian, but perhaps actually non-Austronesian'' are spoken in northern Vanuatu and southern Vanuatu ( North Vanuatu languages and

). *''Austronesian, but may have experienced bilingualism with non-Austronesian'' are spoken in central Vanuatu and

(

Central Vanuatu languages The Central Vanuatu languages form a linkage of Southern Oceanic languages spoken in central Vanuatu. Languages Clark (2009) Clark (2009) provides the following classification of the Central Vanuatu languages, divided into geographic areas. Outli ...

and

New Caledonian languages The thirty New Caledonian languages form a branch of the Southern Oceanic languages. Their speakers are known as Kanaks. One language is extinct, one is critically endangered, 4 are severely endangered, 5 are endangered, and another 5 are vulner ...

). *''non-Austronesian, with some other languages traditionally classified as Austronesian may perhaps actually be non-Austronesian'' are spoken in the

and

New Britain New Britain ( tpi, Niu Briten) is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago, part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. It is separated from New Guinea by a northwest corner of the Solomon Sea (or with an island hop of Umboi the Dam ...

(various

Meso-Melanesian languages 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. Composition The languages group ...

Word order

Word order in Oceanic languages is highly diverse, and is distributed in the following geographic regions (Lynch, Ross, & Crowley 2002:49). * Subject–verb–object:

Admiralty Islands The Admiralty Islands are an archipelago group of 18 islands in the Bismarck Archipelago, to the north of New Guinea in the South Pacific Ocean. These are also sometimes called the Manus Islands, after the largest island. These rainforest-co ...

, most of

Markham Valley The Markham Valley is a geographical area in Papua New Guinea. The name "Markham" commemorates Sir Clements Markham, Secretary of the British Royal Geographical Society - Captain John Moresby of the Royal Navy named the Markham River after Sir Cl ...

, Siasi Islands, most of

, New Ireland, some parts of

Bougainville Island Bougainville Island (Tok Pisin: ''Bogenvil'') is the main island of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, which is part of Papua New Guinea. It was previously the main landmass in the German Empire-associated North Solomons. Its land area is ...

, most parts of the southeast

, most parts of

, some parts of

, most of

Subject–object–verb Subject ( la, subiectus "lying beneath") may refer to: Philosophy *'' Hypokeimenon'', or ''subiectum'', in metaphysics, the "internal", non-objective being of a thing **Subject (philosophy), a being that has subjective experiences, subjective con ...

: central and southeast

, some parts of

Madang Madang (old German name: ''Friedrich-Wilhelmshafen'') is the capital of Madang Province and is a town with a population of 27,420 (in 2005) on the north coast of Papua New Guinea. It was first settled by the Germans in the 19th century. Histor ...

coast,

Wewak Wewak is the capital of the East Sepik province of Papua New Guinea. It is on the northern coast of the island of New Guinea. It is the largest town between Madang and Jayapura. It is the see city (seat) of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Wewak. ...

coast, Sarmi coast, a few parts of Bougainville, some parts of

Verb–subject–object A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descri ...

New Georgia New Georgia, with an area of , is the largest of the islands in Western Province, Solomon Islands, and the 200th-largest island in the world. Geography New Georgia island is located in the New Georgia Group, an archipelago including most of ...

, some parts of

Santa Ysabel Island Santa Isabel (also known as Isabel, Ysabel and Mahaga) is the largest island in Isabel Province, Solomon Islands. It is also the longest island, with the third largest surface area, in the country. Location and geographic data Choiseul Island, C ...

, much of

* Verb–object–subject:

Fijian language Fijian (') is an Austronesian language of the Malayo-Polynesian family spoken by some 350,000–450,000 ethnic Fijians as a native language. The 2013 Constitution established Fijian as an official language of Fiji, along with English and Fij ...

, Anejom language,

Loyalty Islands The Loyalty Islands Province ( French ''Province des îles Loyauté'') is one of three administrative subdivisions of New Caledonia encompassing the Loyalty Island (french: Îles Loyauté) archipelago in the Pacific, which are located northeast of ...

Kiribati Kiribati (), officially the Republic of Kiribati ( gil, ibaberikiKiribati),Kiribati
''The Wor ...

, many parts of

Nggela The Nggela Islands, also known as the Florida Islands, are a small island group in the Central Province of Solomon Islands, a sovereign state (since 1978) in the southwest Pacific Ocean. The chain is composed of four larger islands and about ...

*Object-initial: only two, Äiwoo ( object-verb-subject) and Tobati ( object-subject-verb) *

Topic-prominent language A topic-prominent language is a language that organizes its syntax to emphasize the topic–comment structure of the sentence. The term is best known in American linguistics from Charles N. Li and Sandra Thompson (linguist), Sandra Thompson, who ...

: much of

Choiseul Island Choiseul Island, native name Lauru, is the largest island () of the Choiseul Province, Solomon Islands, at . The administrative headquarters of Choiseul Province is situated in the town of Taro, on Taro Island. History In 1768, the French expl ...

, some parts of

References

Bibliography

* * * {{Authority control Languages of Oceania

Classification

Lynch, Ross, & Crowley (2002)

Ross, Pawley, & Osmond (2016)

Non-Austronesian languages

Word order

See also

References

Bibliography