Austronesian

American  

[aw-stroh-nee-zhuhn, -shuhn] / ˌɔ stroʊˈni ʒən, -ʃən /

noun

1. Also called Malayo-Polynesian.  a family of languages spoken in the Malay Peninsula, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Madagascar, and Oceania.

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adjective

1. of or relating to Austronesia or the Austronesian family of languages; Malayo-Polynesian.

Austronesian British  

/ ˌɒstrəʊˈniːʒən, -ʃən /

adjective

1. of or relating to Austronesia, its peoples, or their languages

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noun

1. another name for Malayo-Polynesian

Etymology

Origin of Austronesian

First recorded in 1900–05; Austronesi(a) + -an

Example Sentences

Only about 2.5% of the island’s population is of Austronesian descent, with ancestors preceding Japanese, Chinese and Dutch settlers in the early 1600s.

From Los Angeles Times • May 2, 2023

Such linguistic neutrality persists in a number of modern tongues whose third-person pronouns lack a masculine or feminine inflection, among them Armenian, Bengali, Farsi, Finnish, Hungarian, Yoruba and most Turkic and Austronesian languages.

From New York Times • Feb. 17, 2022

There were exceptions, however: some Austronesian languages paired the concept of love, a typically positive emotion, with pity, a typically negative one.

From Scientific American • Dec. 19, 2019

The people of Vanuatu today speak Austronesian languages like those presumably spoken by the Lapita.

From BBC • Mar. 2, 2018

Most languages of the Bismarck and Solomon islands are Austronesian: Papuan languages are spoken only in isolated pockets on a few islands.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond