Timor in this context is considered significant as it may provide linguistic evidence for languages arriving from Papua both prior and subsequent to the establishment of
Austronesian languages.
As we know that the
Austronesian language family is one of the largest language families in the world.
Motu shares with other members of the Central family of
Austronesian languages some significant characteristics which contribute to a considerable degree of formal indeterminacy.
Currents in Pacific Linguistics: Papers on
Austronesian languages and ethnolinguistics in honour of George W.
Alternation between l and r is not infrequent in both Aslian and
Austronesian languages.
Testing population dispersal hypotheses: Pacific settlement, phylogenetic trees, and
Austronesian languages.
One has to state in the very beginning that when comparing the Finno-Ugric languages, for example, with the
Austronesian languages or with languages spoken in Africa and America, reduplication in the Finno-Ugric languages shows a modest degree of grammaticalization and is usually accompanied by a psycho-pragmatic shade of meaning (emotional stance, non-neutral (i.
The main points are: (a) the opposition is nearly always operative in
Austronesian languages and is historically deep-rooted; (b) INC often means polite behavior regarding the addressee; (c) when the opposition was lost, INC survived and became P1.
Similarly, the distribution of
Austronesian languages is being used to map the prehistoric migration out of Taiwan and onto the islands of the open Pacific.
Papuan and
Austronesian languages have coexisted in New Guinea and nearby islands, and even beyond the Solomon Islands, giving rise to hundreds of languages with restricted distributions, many of them spoken only in a single valley or an even smaller region.
1) Iban appears to have been the innovating language, as the polarity sets Iban apart from other, related
Austronesian languages, even one as closely related as Malay.
The TAP languages are surrounded by
Austronesian languages, and TAP/Malay bilingualism is generally high.
