ABSTRACT
The name ‘Austronesian’ was coined in 1899 by P.W. Schmidt, combining two existing formatives, Austro- (Latin auster ‘south’) and -nesian (Greek nesos ‘island’). Austrone-sian languages are in fact spoken primarily on islands rather than continental areas, and have a slight southern bias, though they are to be found on both sides of the Equator. The number of languages in the family is estimated at more than 1,200. The core of ‘Austronesia’ includes Madagascar, Indonesia (with Malaysia and Brunei), the Philippines, Taiwan and the Pacific island groups of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. Apart from recent intrusions, the only non-Austronesian languages in this domain are found on the island of New Guinea (where Austronesian speakers are confined to coastal areas) and some islands near it, including Timor and Halmahera to the west, and New Britain and Bougainville to the east.
