Greater Central Philippine languages

Greater Central Philippine
Greater Central Philippine
Geographic; distribution	Philippines; parts of Sabah,Malaysia; Northern Sulawesi, Indonesia
Linguistic classification	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Philippine? Greater Central Philippine; ; ;
Proto-language	Proto-Greater Central Philippine
Subdivisions	Central Philippine; South Mangyan; Palawanic; Subanen; Danao; Manobo; Gorontalo–Mongondow;
Glottolog	grea1284

The Greater Central Philippine languages are a proposed subgroup of the Austronesian language family, defined by the change of Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *R to *g. They are spoken in the central and southern parts of the Philippines, eastern and western parts of Sabah, Malaysia and in northern Sulawesi, Indonesia.^[1] This subgroup was first proposed by Robert Blust (1991) based on lexical and phonological evidence,^[1] and is accepted by most specialists in the field.^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]

Most of the major languages of the Philippines belong to the Greater Central Philippine subgroup: Tagalog, the Visayan languages Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Waray; Central Bikol, the Danao languages Maranao and Magindanaon.^[6] On the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia, Gorontalo is the third-largest language by number of speakers.^[7]

History

According to Blust, the current distribution of the Greater Central Philippine languages is the result of an expansion that occurred around 500 B.C. and which led to levelling of much of the linguistic diversity in the central and southern Philippines.

Remnants of this earlier diversity can still be found in relic areas within the Greater Central Philippine area, viz. Manide in southern Luzon, Ati on Panay, the North Mangyan languages on Mindoro, the Kalamian languages in northern Palawan and the South Mindanao languages.^[1]

Classification

The Greater Central Philippine subgroup comprises the following microgroups:^[1]

Central Philippine languages (including Tagalog, Bikol languages, and Bisayan languages)
South Mangyan languages
Palawanic languages
Subanen languages
Danao languages (including Maranao and Magindanao)
Manobo languages
Gorontalo–Mongondow languages (including Gorontalo and Mongondow)

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Blust, Robert (1991). "The Greater Central Philippines hypothesis". Oceanic Linguistics. 30 (2): 73–129. doi:10.2307/3623084. JSTOR 3623084.
^ Lobel, Jason William. (2013). Philippine and North Bornean languages: issues in description, subgrouping, and reconstruction. Ph.D. dissertation. Manoa: University of Hawai'i at Manoa.
^ Reid, Lawrence A. (2018). "Modeling the linguistic situation in the Philippines." In Let's Talk about Trees, ed. by Ritsuko Kikusawa and Lawrence A. Reid. Osaka: Senri Ethnological Studies, Minpaku. doi:10.15021/00009006 (autodownload)
^ Smith, Alexander D. (2017). "The Western Malayo-Polynesian Problem". Oceanic Linguistics. 56 (2): 435–490. doi:10.1353/ol.2017.0021.
^ Himes, Robert S. (2002). "The Relationship of Umiray Dumaget to Other Philippine Languages". Oceanic Linguistics. 41 (2): 275–294. doi:10.1353/ol.2002.0005. JSTOR 3623311.
^ "Ethnologue report for Philippines". www.ethnologue.com.
^ "Ethnologue report for Indonesia (Sulawesi)". www.ethnologue.com.