Oceanic languages
subgroup of the Austronesian language family
The Oceanic languages are a branch of the Austronesian languages comprising some 450 languages spoken in Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia. Though covering a vast area, Oceanic languages are estimated to have only two million native speakers. 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 (Gazelle Peninsula) languages each have over 100,000 speakers. The common ancestor which is reconstructed for this group of languages is called Proto-Oceanic (abbr. "POc").
Classification
The Oceanic languages were first shown to be a language family by Sidney Herbert Ray in 1896 and, besides Malayo-Polynesian, they are the only established large branch of Austronesian languages. Grammatically, they have been strongly influenced by the Papuan languages of northern New Guinea, but they retain a remarkably large amount of Austronesian vocabulary.
Lynch, Ross, & Crowley (2002)
According to John Lynch, Malcolm Ross, and Terry Crowley's 2002 book The Oceanic Languages, Oceanic languages often form linkages with each other. Linkages are formed when languages emerged historically from an earlier dialect continuum.
The public source identifies “Oceanic languages” as subgroup of the Austronesian language family. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Oceanic, languages and subgroup.
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This entry incorporates text from “Oceanic languages” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.