The Central Malayo-Polynesian languages ( CMP ) are a proposed branch in the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup of the Austronesian language family . The languages are spoken in the Lesser Sunda and Maluku Islands of the Banda Sea , in an area corresponding closely to the Indonesian provinces of East Nusa Tenggara and Maluku and the nation of East Timor (excepting the Papuan languages of Timor and nearby islands), but with the Bima language extending to the eastern half of Sumbawa Island in the province of West Nusa Tenggara and the Sula languages of the Sula archipelago in the southwest corner of the province of North Maluku . The principal islands in this region are Sumbawa, Sumba , Flores , Timor, Buru , and Seram . The numerically most important languages are Bima, Manggarai of western Flores, Uab Meto of West Timor, and Tetum , the national language of East Timor.
19-551: Blust proposes that the CMP languages form a linkage , which means that the CMP languages share a common ancestor and many overlapping innovations, none of which however are found in all CMP languages. Based on the Glottolog , CMP can be provisionally divided into the following subgroups: Edwards & Grimes (2021) find that the similarities between the demonstrable groups of CMP languages are due to Papuan substrates and contact. They propose
38-541: A genealogical subgroup. The glottometric diagram represents graphically the strength of each subgroup. Thus, the contour's thickness can be made proportional to the rate of “cohesiveness” or “subgroupiness” calculated for that subgroup. The homepage of Historical Glottometry includes an example of a glottometric diagram , based on a study of the Torres–Banks linkage in Vanuatu . Glottometric results can also be displayed in
57-446: A set of exclusively-shared innovations), but whose common ancestor may not have been discretely separated from its neighbours. For example, a chain of dialects {A B C D E F} may undergo a number of linguistic innovations, some affecting {BCD}, others {CDE}, still others {DEF}. Insofar as each set of dialects was mutually intelligible at the time of the innovations, all can be seen as forming separate languages. Among them, Proto-BCD will be
76-567: A single ancestral language, but that is not the case for Central Malayo-Polynesian. This scenario does not amount to a denial of a common ancestry of the Central Malayo-Polynesian languages. It is only a reinterpretation of the age of the relationship to be just as old as their relationship to Eastern Malayo-Polynesian. François (2014 , p. 171) suggests that most of the world's language families are really linkages that are made up of intersecting, not nested, subgroups. He cites
95-444: Is a quantitative, non-cladistic approach to language subgrouping . The aim of historical glottometry (HG) is to address the limitations of the tree model when applied to dialect continua and linkages . It acknowledges that the genealogical structure of a linkage typically consists of entangled subgroups, and provides ways to reconstruct that internal structure by measuring the relative strength of these subgroups. This approach
114-596: Is contrasted with a family , which arises when the proto-language speech community separates into groups that remain isolated from each other and do not form a network. Linkages are formed when languages emerged historically from the diversification of an earlier dialect continuum . Its members may have diverged despite sharing subsequent innovations, or such dialects may have come into contact and so converged. In any dialect continuum, innovations are shared between neighbouring dialects in intersecting patterns. The patterns of intersecting innovations continue to be evident as
133-707: Is the one formed by the Central Malayo-Polynesian languages of the Banda Sea (a sea in the South Moluccas in Indonesia ). The Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages are commonly divided into two branches, Central Malayo-Polynesian and Eastern Malayo-Polynesian , each having certain defining features that unify them and distinguish them from the other. However, whereas Proto-Eastern and Proto-Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian can be reconstructed (the sibling and
152-585: The Oceanic languages of northern Vanuatu as well as those of Fiji and of Polynesia and at least some sections of the Pama-Nyungan , Athabaskan , Semitic , Sinitic , and Indo-European families . Within Indo-European, Indo-Aryan , Western Romance and Germanic , in turn, form linkages of their own. Historical glottometry Historical glottometry is a method used in historical linguistics . It
171-487: The Taliabo languages , generally held to be part of Central Maluku , are actually Celebic (specifically, Saluan–Banggai ). Linkage (linguistics) In historical linguistics , a linkage is a network of related dialects or languages that formed from a gradual diffusion and differentiation of a proto-language . The term was introduced by Malcolm Ross in his study of Western Oceanic languages ( Ross 1988 ). It
190-567: The Tree model often used in historical linguistics, which presupposes that innovations should be nested. This common situation is better approached using the Wave model . Inspired by dialectometry , the aim of Historical Glottometry is to provide an alternative, non-cladistic approach to language genealogy , while remaining true to the principles of the Comparative method developed by Neogrammarians in
209-409: The wave model . The cladistic approach underlying the tree model requires the common ancestor of each subgroup to be discontiguous from other related languages and unable to share any innovation with them after their "separation". That assumption is absent from Ross and François's approach to linkages. Their genealogical subgroups also have languages descended from a common ancestor, as defined by
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#1732848792615228-413: The 19th century. The fundamental principles of Historical Glottometry include the following: One of the outputs of Historical Glottometry takes the form of a “glottometric diagram”. Such diagrams are analogous to the isogloss maps used in dialectology , except that each isogloss refers not to a single innovation but to a set of languages defined by one or more exclusively-shared innovations — that is,
247-431: The dialect continuum turns into a linkage. According to the comparative method , a group of languages that exclusively shares a set of innovations constitutes a " (genealogical) subgroup ". A linkage is thus usually characterised by the presence of intersecting subgroups. The tree model does not allow for the existence of intersecting subgroups and so is ill-suited to represent linkages, which are better approached using
266-497: The following groups of languages in the area as primary branches of Austronesian. Several of these groups have been previously proposed, including by Blust: Seram Laut, apart from Kowiai, was first proposed by Collins (1986). It is distinguished from Ambon–Seram to the west in its reflexes of *j, *R, *-aw, and from Tanimbar–Bomberai to the east in *j and *z, but is only weakly defined as a unit. Its three branches are however well defined. Edwards & Grimes (2021) further propose that
285-435: The form of Neighbornets , or of glottometric maps . Several studies have been conducted, partly or entirely within the framework of Historical glottometry – including the following: Jacques & List (2019) show that the concept of incomplete lineage sorting can be applied to account for non-treelike phenomena in language evolution. Kalyan and François (2019) concur that "Historical Glottometry does not challenge
304-452: The language ancestral to the subgroup BCD, Proto-CDE the language ancestral to CDE and so on. As for the language descended from dialect D, it will belong simultaneously to three "intersecting subgroups" (BCD, CDE and DEF). In both the tree and the linkage approaches, genealogical subgroups are strictly defined by their shared inheritance from a common ancestor. Simply, although trees entail that all proto-languages must be discretely separated,
323-404: The linkage model avoids that assumption. François also claims that a tree can be considered a special case of a linkage in which all subgroups happen to be nested and temporally ordered from broadest to narrowest. In order to unravel the genealogical structure of linkages, Kalyan and François have designed a dedicated quantitative method, named Historical glottometry . An example of a linkage
342-479: The parent of Central Malayo-Polynesian, respectively), a Proto-Central Malayo-Polynesian language reconstruction, distinct from Proto-Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian does not seem feasible. It may be that the branches of Central Malayo-Polynesian are each as old as Eastern Malayo-Polynesian but that they went on to exchange features that are now considered to define them as a family. The features common to Eastern Malayo-Polynesian can be assumed to have been present in
361-513: Was developed by Alexandre François ( CNRS ) and Siva Kalyan ( ANU ). While the method was initially applied to Oceanic languages , in recent years it has been applied to a much broader range of language families. Historical Glottometry grew out of the observation that a large number of language families in the world form linkages (a term coined by Malcolm Ross ), i.e. they evolved out of former dialect continua in which historical innovations tend to overlap. Such linkages do not conform with
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