{"id":7576,"date":"2020-10-07T09:00:50","date_gmt":"2020-10-07T09:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/?p=7576"},"modified":"2023-11-27T12:22:33","modified_gmt":"2023-11-27T12:22:33","slug":"distant-cousins-from-across-the-oceans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/distant-cousins-from-across-the-oceans\/","title":{"rendered":"Distant Cousins From Across the Oceans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Imagine speaking a language separated from its closest relatives by thousands of kilometres. Imagine if these languages were part of an immense family that spanned more than three-quarters of the globe. Before Europe\u2019s Age of Exploration, speakers of this language family had navigated the oceans without a compass and colonised a massive area from Madagascar off the East Coast of Africa to Easter Island, not far from the West Coast of South America.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meet Austronesian. Originating from Taiwan millennia ago,\nancient mariners on sophisticated boats settled the islands of what is now the\nPhilippines and Indonesia before spreading east and west. As their languages\nchange, evolve and split into other languages over time, modern descendants\ninclude Malagasy – the official language of Madagascar, Bahasa Indonesia,\nBahasa Malaysia and Tagalog \u2013 languages with huge numbers of speakers in\nSoutheast Asia – along with thousands of other languages spoken on the islands\nof the Pacific: Chamorro, Kiribati, Fijian, Samoan, Tongan, Tahitian, Maori,\nHawaiian, Rapa Nui and so forth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The languages spoken by the descendants of these intrepid seafarers are diverse but they share a common set of vocabulary linking them back to their distant ancestors in Taiwan. Interestingly, Aboriginal groups still exist in Taiwan and they still speak languages belonging to this huge family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shared words<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Amazingly, the ancient words brought by sea to the farthest\nreaches of the Pacific have remained incredibly stable these past few thousand\nyears. Hawaiian sailors call the sail of a boat a l\u0101 and this word is related\nto the word layar also meaning \u201csail\u201d in Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malaysia.\nMeanwhile, Filipinos say layag, Chamorro speakers say layak and Madagascans say\nlay \u2013 all meaning \u201csail\u201d! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFruit\u201d is hua in Maori and Hawaiian, vua in Fijian, buah in\nBahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malaysia and voa in Malagasy! A stone or pebble is\na whatu in New Zealand Maori, vatu in Fijian, batu in Bahasa Indonesia and\nBahasa Malaysia, bato in Tagalog and vato in Malagasy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s not all. The word for \u201cfive\u201d is lima in Hawaiian,\nSamoan, Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Malaysia and Tagalog! All pronounced in the\nexact same way! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Tahitian calls his or her eyes mata. Guess what? Well, so\ndo New Zealand Maori, Tongans, Samoans, Fijians, Easter Islanders and even\nTaiwanese Aboriginal tribes like the Bunun and the Amis, Malaysians,\nIndonesians and Filipinos! This exact same word has remained unchanged for\nthousands of years! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shared History, Shared Origins<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Using traditional navigational methods, ancient sailors made\nperilous journeys across thousands of kilometres of ocean. They brought along\ntheir families, their material belongings, their livestock and even their pets\nwherever the ocean currents took them. Their descendants now span the globe\nfrom Taiwan, to Madagascar, to Southeast Asia, to the farthest corners of the Pacific\nOcean. The languages they speak to this day carries echoes of their ancient\nshared ancestry, a testament to human determination, ingenuity and\nadaptability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Imagine speaking a language separated from its closest relatives by thousands of kilometres. Imagine if these languages were part of an immense family that spanned more than three-quarters of the globe. Before Europe\u2019s Age of Exploration, speakers of this language family had navigated the oceans without a compass and colonised a massive area from Madagascar … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9581,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[1846,1157],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7576"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7576"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9582,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7576\/revisions\/9582"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}