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The Austronesian languages overall possess phoneme inventories which are smaller than the world average. Around 90% of the Austronesian languages have inventories of 19–25 sounds (15–20 consonants and 4–5 vowels), thus lying at the lower end of the global typical range of 20–37 sounds.
Map showing the distribution of language families; the pink color shows where Austronesian languages are spoken. This is a list of major and official Austronesian languages, a language family originating from Taiwan, that is widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia and Madagascar.
The Austronesian languages are widely spread across the globe, as far west as Malagasy in Madagascar, as far east as Rapa Nui in Easter Island, and as far as north as the Formosan languages of Taiwan. Austronesian has several primary branches, all but one of which are found exclusively on Taiwan. [citation needed]
The Austronesian peoples refer to people sometimes referred to as Austronesian-speaking peoples, [44] and are meant to refer to a large group of peoples from places such as Taiwan, Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Micronesia, coastal New Guinea, Island Melanesia, Polynesia, and Madagascar that speak languages that have been categorized by some as Austronesian languages.
The Language families of Asia. Asia is home to hundreds of languages comprising several families and some unrelated isolates. The most spoken language families on the continent include Austroasiatic, Austronesian, Japonic, Dravidian, Indo-European, Afroasiatic, Turkic, Sino-Tibetan, Kra–Dai and Koreanic.
Austronesian–Ongan languages; International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics; List of major and official Austronesian languages; A. Austro-Tai languages;
The Austronesian languages of Taiwan, Borneo, Madagascar and the Philippines are also well known for their unusual morphosyntactic alignment, which is known as the symmetrical voice (also known as the Austronesian alignment). This alignment was also present in the Proto-Austronesian language.
The Austro-Tai languages, sometimes also Austro-Thai languages, are a proposed language family that comprises the Austronesian languages and Kra–Dai languages. Related proposals include Austric ( Wilhelm Schmidt in 1906) and Sino-Austronesian ( Laurent Sagart in 1990, 2005).