The over 200 Central–Eastern Oceanic languages form a branch of the

Oceanic Oceanic may refer to: *Of or relating to the ocean *Of or relating to Oceania **Oceanic climate **Oceanic languages **Oceanic person or people, also called "Pacific Islander(s)" Places * Oceanic, British Columbia, a settlement on Smith Island, ...

language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term ''family'' is a metaphor borrowed from biology, with the tree model used in historical linguistics ...

within the

Austronesian languages The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken ...

Languages

Traditional classifications have posited a Remote Oceanic branch within this family, but this was abandoned in Lynch ''et al.'' (2002), as no defining features could be found for such a group of languages. * Southeast Solomonic * Southern Oceanic linkage (non-Polynesian languages of

Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (; ), is an island country in Melanesia located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, east o ...

and

New Caledonia New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...

) * Micronesian * Central Pacific ( Fijian dialects spoken in

Fiji Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about ...

and Polynesian) In 2007 Ross & Næss moved the

Utupua-Vanikoro languages The Temotu languages, named after Temotu Province of the Solomon Islands, are a branch of Oceanic languages proposed in Ross & Næss (2007) to unify the Reefs – Santa Cruz languages with Utupua and Vanikoro, each a group of three related langua ...

from Central-Eastern Oceanic to the newly established Temotu branch of Oceanic.

References

*Lynch, John, Malcolm Ross & Terry Crowley. (2002). ''

The Oceanic Languages ''The Oceanic Languages'' is a 2002 reference work by John Lynch, Malcolm Ross, and Terry Crowley, about the Oceanic family of languages – a large subgroup within the Austronesian phylum. It is the only formal survey of the field and ...

.'' Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press. {{DEFAULTSORT:Central-Eastern Oceanic languages Languages of Oceania Oceanic languages

Languages

See also

References