The Big Austronesian Family

SOURCE: AMNAJ WORDPRESS

Austronesia, in historical terms, refers to the homeland of the peoples who speak Austronesian languages, including Malay, Filipino, Indonesian, Maori, Malagasy, native Hawaiian, the Fijian language and around a thousand other languages.

The Austronesian homeland is thought by linguists to have been prehistoric Taiwan.

The name Austronesia comes from the Latin austrālis “southern” plus the Greek νήσος (nêsos) “island”. However, in contemporary terminology, the word Austronesia pertains to the regions where Austronesian languages are spoken.

Austronesia then covers almost half of the globe, although mostly ocean and oceanic islands, starting from Madagascar to the west until Easter Island, to the east. Austronesia as a region has three traditional divisions: Taiwan (Formosa), the Maritime Southeast Asia, and Austronesian Oceania (Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia).

Where the Proto-Austronesian people developed is a sticky problem. Some think the region of the Southern Philippines and Eastern Indonesia was the likely area, while others favor either Formosa or South China.

Around 5,000 B.C. blade stone tool technology reached the northern and central Philippines from the south. Wilhelm Solheim of the University of Hawai’i postulates that active maritime trade and migration was already going on in Insular and Mainland Southeast Asia by between 4,500 and 5,000 B.C. Eusebio Dizon of the National Museum of the Philippines believes this date can be moved to between 6,000 and 7,000 B.C. based on the most recent radiocarbon dating.

Sometime between 1,500 B.C. and 2,000 B.C., the Lapita culture of Fiji and Tonga developed. Therefore, we can safely assume that the Proto- or Pre-Austronesians had already reached many areas of either Micronesia or Melanesia to the West. The presence of Austronesians in Madagascar has been confirmed to at least the beginning of the era, although Solheim states that work to find the earliest habitation has not yet been completed. The lack of iron and Hindu-Buddhist influences, suggest an even earlier date.

Copy and paste: 18 June 2024: 11 Zulhijjah 1445H: 5.50 p.m