malapropism [Fr. mal à propos ‘not to the purpose, inappropriate’]

Language group comprising approx. 500 languages with over 170 million speakers spread throughout Madagascar, South-East Asia, Indonesia, and the Pacific Islands. These languages can be divided into two main groups: East Malayo-Polynesian (or Oceanic, containing the languages of Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia) and West Malayo-Polynesian (including the languages of Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Madagascar, and parts of South-East Asia). The most important languages belong to the West Malayo-Polynesian group: Indonesian (about 100 million speakers, also as second language), Javanese (about 66 million speakers), Sundanese (about 17 million speakers), Malay (about 12 million speakers), Tagalog and Cebuano in the Philippines (about 13 million each), Malagasy (about 10 million speakers). Included among the less widespread languages of the East Malayo-Polynesian group are Fijian (about 300,000 speakers) and Samoan (about 200,000 speakers).