Oceanic languages

Oceanic
Oceanic
Geographic; distribution	Oceania; (Melanesia; Micronesia; Polynesia);
Linguistic classification	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian Eastern Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic; ; ; ;
Proto-language	Proto-Oceanic
Subdivisions	Admiralty Islands–Yapese; St Matthias Islands; Western Oceanic; Temotu; Central–Eastern Oceanic;
Glottolog	ocea1241
	The branches of Oceanic (The bottom four could be grouped under one branch, -Central Eastern Oceanic) Admiralties and Yapese St Matthias Western Oceanic Temotu Southeast Solomons Southern Oceanic Micronesian Fijian–Polynesian The black ovals at the northwestern limit of Micronesia are the non-Oceanic Malayo-Polynesian languages Palauan and Chamorro. The black circles inside the green circles are offshore Papuan languages.

The approximately 450 Oceanic languages are a branch of the Austronesian languages. The area occupied by speakers of these languages includes Polynesia, as well as much of Melanesia and Micronesia. Though covering a vast area, Oceanic languages are spoken by only two million people. The largest individual Oceanic languages are Eastern Fijian with over 600,000 speakers, and Samoan with an estimated 400,000 speakers. The Gilbertese (Kiribati), Tongan, Tahitian, Māori and Tolai (Gazelle Peninsula) languages each have over 100,000 speakers. The common ancestor which is reconstructed for this group of languages is called Proto-Oceanic (abbr. "POc").

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