Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of or relating to Austronesia or its peoples, languages, or cultures.
  • noun A family of languages that includes the Formosan, Indonesian, Malay, Melanesian, Micronesian, and Polynesian subfamilies.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Same as Malay-Polynesian.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective of or pertaining to Austronesia.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of or pertaining to Austronesia.
  • noun Any of a family of languages from Austronesia, including Formosan, Indonesian, Malay, Melanesian, Micronesian, and Polynesian subfamilies

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective of or relating to or characteristic of Austronesia or its people or culture
  • noun the family of languages spoken in Australia and Formosa and Malaysia and Polynesia
  • noun a native or inhabitant of Austronesia

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From German Austronesisch coined by Wilhelm Schmidt; from Latin auster ("south wind") + Greek νήσος ("island").

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Examples

  • "Traces of Archaic Mitochondrial Lineages Persist in Austronesian-Speaking Formosan Populations."

    How Taiwan Became Chinese 2006

  • Ross, Malcolm D. "Some Current Issues in Austronesian Linguistics."

    How Taiwan Became Chinese 2006

  • In other words, it was a paper on what we would now call the Austronesian languages.

    languagehat.com: MORE BAD WRITING. 2004

  • In other words, it was a paper on what we would now call the Austronesian languages.

    languagehat.com: MORE BAD WRITING. 2004

  • All of the languages spoken in the region-called the Austronesian languages-can be traced back to a Taiwanese origin.

    PhysOrg.com - latest science and technology news stories 2010

  • Thereafter, one or several groups of people migrated North, mixed with previous settlers there and, finally, formed various populations we now refer to as Austronesian, Austro-Asiatic,

    Signs of the Times 2009

  • Thereafter, one or several groups of people migrated North, mixed with previous settlers there and, finally, formed various populations we now refer to as Austronesian,

    www.hardwarezone.com.sg 2009

  • Thereafter, one or several groups of people migrated North, mixed with previous settlers there and, finally, formed various populations we now refer to as Austronesian, Austro-Asiatic, Tai-Kadai, Hmong-Mien, and Altaic.

    PhysOrg.com - latest science and technology news stories 2009

  • Early Phonetic and Phonemic Changes in Austronesian.

    How Taiwan Became Chinese 2006

  • The scientists used computer analysis of vocabulary from 400 "Austronesian" languages to determine how the Pacific was settled.

    unknown title 2009

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