Malayo-Polynesian

[muh-ley-oh-pol-uh-nee-zhuhn, -shuhn]

noun

1. Austronesian.

Malayo-Polynesian

noun

1. Also called: Austronesian. a family of languages extending from Madagascar to the central Pacific, including Malagasy, Malay, Indonesian, Tagalog, and Polynesian See also Austro-Asiatic

adjective

1. of or relating to this family of languages

Example Sentences

In the interview, McCartney also told Goldberg about his inspiration for writing the Beatles' song "Lady Madonna"—a National Geographic magazine photograph of a Malayo-Polynesian woman surrounded by three small children, one of them nursing.

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But one of those subfamilies, termed Malayo-Polynesian, comprises 945 of those 959 languages and covers almost the entire geographic range of the Austronesian family.

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It is astonishing how widely this Malayo-Polynesian speech has spread.

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The Indios were the Christianized and more or less cultured populations of all the towns and of the settled agricultural districts, speaking a distinct Malayo-Polynesian language of much more archaic type than the standard Malay.

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The inhabitants of this island are the last outpost of the Malayo-Polynesian race.

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