Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian
Geographic distribution:	Indonesia and the Pacific
Genetic classification:	Austronesian  Paiwanic ?   Malayo-Polynesian (MP)    Indo-Melanesian     Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian
Subdivisions:	"Sunda-Sulawesi" branches Central-Eastern MP branches
The principal branches of the Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian languages:      Sunda-Sulawesi (Chamorro off-map)      Central Malayo-Polynesian      Eastern Malayo-Polynesian      Oceanic (vast majority off-map)

The Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian languages are a branch of the Austronesian family, proposed by Wouk & Ross (2002), that are thought to have dispersed from a possible homeland in Sulawesi. They are called nuclear because they are the conceptual core of the Malayo-Polynesian family, including both Malay and Polynesian. Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian is found throughout Indonesia, apart from central Borneo, Sabah, and the north of Sulawesi, and into Melanesia and the Pacific.

The Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian languages are defined as those which have abandoned the Austronesian alignment inherited from the syntax of the proto-Malayo-Polynesian language. The include the traditional geographic groupings of Central Malayo-Polynesian, Eastern Malayo-Polynesian, and part of Western Malayo-Polynesian, a part which Wouk and Ross call Inner Western Malayo-Polynesian. Inner Western Malayo-Polynesian is therefore defined negatively, those languages of Sunda and Sulawesi which are not included in Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian, which like Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian as a whole has received moderate support as a valid linguistic grouping.

Composition

A 2008 analysis of the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database found moderate lexical support for the syntactically defined Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian family, with a 75% confidence, within a fully supported Indo-Melanesian family (languages of Indonesia, Melanesia, and the Pacific, apart from northern Sulawesi). The structure of the family revealed by that provisional study, including the confidences for the unity of each branch to the nearest 5%, are as follows:

Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian (75%)

• Greater Malayo-Sumbawan (60%)
• Tamanic (Mbaloh)
• Sulawesi-Polynesian (65%)
  • Sangir-Minahasan (80%)^[1]
  • South Sulawesi (100%)
  • Celebo-Polynesian (80%)
    • Celebic (100%)
    • Greater Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian (85%)
      • Northern Sumatran Barrier Islands (Nias)^[2]
      • Chamorro
      • Palauan
      • Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian (80%)
        • Sumba-Flores (100%)
        • Core Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian (80%)

Notes

1. ^ Sangir and Minahasan were excluded from Nuclear MP by Wouk & Ross (2002), and included with the Philippine languages (outside Nuclear MP) by Adelaar and Himmelmann (2005)
2. ^ The connection between Nias and Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian is dubious, and has not been suggested by other researchers.

References

• Fay Wouk and Malcolm Ross (ed.), 2002, The history and typology of western Austronesian voice systems. Australian National University.
• K. Alexander Adelaar and Nikolaus Himmelmann, 2005, The Austronesian languages of Asia and Madagascar. Routledge.
• Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database[1]

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