A family written by canoes
The Austronesian voyages
Setting out from Taiwan, across the Pacific and the Indian Ocean — long before Columbus, Austronesian speakers had carried their languages over half the globe.
Chapter 1
Where it began: Taiwan
Austronesian has some 1,250 languages, but its oldest and most diverse branches are all in Taiwan: Amis, Atayal, Paiwan, Bunun… Linguists reason that a family’s homeland is usually where it is most diverse. Some four thousand years ago and more, Austronesian speakers began moving south from Taiwan.
Chapter 2
From island to island
They reached the Philippines first, then pushed south into Borneo, Sulawesi and Java, and east to the Marianas. Tagalog, Malay, Indonesian and Javanese all descend from these movements.
Chapter 3
Across the Indian Ocean
More than a thousand years ago, seafarers from southeastern Borneo sailed west across the entire Indian Ocean to Madagascar, off Africa. That is why Malagasy’s closest relative is not in Africa but in Borneo, some 7,000 km away: Ma’anyan.
Chapter 4
The last ocean
Around three thousand years ago Lapita voyagers reached Remote Oceania — Fiji, Tonga, Samoa. Nearly two thousand years later Polynesians, navigating double-hulled canoes by stars, swells and birds, found Hawaii, Rapa Nui and New Zealand, among the last large lands people settled.
Chapter 5
“Five” and “hand”
Proto-Austronesian *lima meant both “five” and “hand”. Thousands of years later, from Taiwan to Hawaii, people still count to five this way. Tahitian is the exception: the old word is said to have fallen under a naming taboo and was replaced by pae.
| Amis | lima |
| Paiwan | lima |
| Tagalog | lima |
| Malay | lima |
| Javanese | lima |
| Malagasy | dimy |
| Fijian | lima |
| Samoan | lima |
| Hawaiian | lima |
| Māori | rima |
| Tahitian | pae |