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The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. The Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken by the Austronesian people of the island nations of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean, with a smaller number in continental Asia. Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam serve as the northeast geographic outlier, going well into the Malay peninsula. On the northern most geographical outlier does not pass beyond the north of Pattani, which is located in southern Thailand. Malagasy is spoken in the island of Madagascar located off the eastern coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean. Part of the language family shows a strong influence of Sanskrit and particularly Arabic as the Western part of the region has been a stronghold of Buddhism, Hinduism, and, since the 10th century, Islam. Two morphological characteristics of the Malayo-Polynesian languages are a system of affixation and the reduplication (repetition of all or part of a word, such as ''wiki-wiki)'' to form new words. Like other Austronesian languages they have small phonemic inventories; thus a text has few but frequent sounds. The majority also lack consonant clusters (e.g., () in English). Most also have only a small set of vowels, five being a common number. ==Languages== The Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken by about 230 million people and include Malay (Indonesian and Malaysian), Sundanese, Javanese, Balinese, Acehnese; and also the Oceanic languages, including Tolai, Gilbertese, Fijian, and Polynesian languages such as Hawaiian, Māori, Samoan, Tahitian, and Tongan. The Philippine languages are spoken by around 100 million people and include Tagalog (Filipino), Cebuano, Ilokano, Hiligaynon, Central Bikol, Waray-Waray, and Kapampangan, each with at least three million speakers. The most widely spoken Bornean language is Malagasy, with 20 million speakers. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Malayo-Polynesian languages」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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