Austronesian Language Structure Vs. West Germanic Language Structure
The world may be in chaos for the most part, but there is an order to things. A day ends after twenty-four hours, and the sun always sets in the evening. However, among all the chaos, we find it difficult to believe there could be an order to everything. We see it around us daily, but we also know the destruction and the disasters. This is why the two don’t add up in our minds. We fail to understand that the two can co-exist at the same time. The natural order of things around us has existed since the beginning. But even in man-made things, an order and a system regulate them.
We have established many disciplines and all of them have laws, rules, hypothesis, and theories. There are many things they have in common. But the most noticeable one is that they all have a structure. If you pick up a Chemistry book and see the periodic table, you will notice a system according to which elements are assigned their particular spots. This is why it is essential to remember the order because it also explains the features of the details, and if someone messes up the order, they will mix up the parts and end up ruining their experiment.
There are hierarchies and structures in societies, too. It isn’t something that is only limited to the scientific fields. Proper systems were established for all disciplines. The structure in Psychology is as important as it is in Mathematics. A type of disorder cannot be understood out of its category. Otherwise, it will affect the treatment process of the client. In linguistics, the situation is no different. Families, branches, and structures define a language’s features in one way or another.
What languages are Austronesian?
Austronesian languages are spoken in the Malay Peninsula, Taiwan, Madagascar, and Maritime Southeast Asia. The Austronesian peoples are the native speakers of these vernaculars. Almost 400 million people on Earth speak an Austronesian language. The most popular members of the group are Malay and Tagalog.
How many languages are spoken in Austronesian?
There are 1268 languages in the Austronesian family. However, the majority of them only have a few speakers. It is the ones like Malay and Tagalog that have more speakers. Out of the 400 million people who speak an Austronesian language, the majority are native speakers of Malay, Tagalog, and Javanese.
What is Austronesian race?
Austronesian peoples are not a single race. They speak the different Austronesian languages. They can be found in different regions of Taiwan, Maritime Southeast Asia, Oceania, and Madagascar. The popular languages spoken by these people are Malay and Tagalog. The territories where the Austronesian peoples live are often collectively referred to as Austronesia.
Is Japanese an Austronesian language?
Javanese is one of the most popular Austronesian languages. It is spoken by the Javanese people who live on the Java island of Indonesia. People often confuse Javanese with Japanese, but the two are different languages. Japanese is spoken in Japan and is a part of the Japonic family. The connection of Japanese with other languages is not established.
Is West Germanic a language group?
West Germanic is one of the three branches of the Germanic group. It is not only the largest but also the most popular branch of the Germanic family. English, German, and Dutch are the most popular members of this branch. Sister and daughter languages of German, English, and Dutch are also a part of this branch.
What languages are considered Germanic?
The languages that derived from Proto-Germanic are considered Germanic. They have been divided into three different branches. English is the most popular Germanic language, with an estimated two billion speakers. German is another popular member of the Germanic group that more than 100 million people speak.
Is English North or West Germanic?
English belongs to the West Germanic branch of the Germanic family. It is a close relative of German and Dutch, the other popular members of the West Germanic branch. It shares a lot of similarities with the two. English also has sister languages and pidgins. They are all part of the West Germanic branch.
Why is English a West Germanic language?
English is a West Germanic language because of its historical background. The Early Old English was identical to Old Frisian, which was, in turn, a form of low West German. Due to English’s connection with West German, it was grouped into the West Germanic branch along with German and Dutch.
Austronesian Language Structure:
Austronesian is the world’s fifth most prominent language family by number of speakers. It is spoken in Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean, and Maritime Southeast Asia. After Niger-Congo, this family contains the most languages in the world. The current number stands at 1,257. One-fifth of the world’s tongues fall under this family. But most of these don’t have many speakers, just like most Niger-Congo languages. The majority of the Austronesian languages are spoken on islands.
Malay, Javanese, and Filipino are the significant members of the group and have the most number of speakers. Malay alone has 250 million speakers and is the 8th most spoken language in the world. Understanding the structure of a diverse family is difficult because most members are quite different. So, to make things easier, it is divided into three parts:
- Philippine-type: The word order in this type is verb-initial primarily. The most prominent feature of this branch is the retention of the Philippine-type voice alterations.
- Indonesian-type: This category has made the voice system a contrast between two voices in sharp contrast with the first type. The word order of this type is verb-second primarily.
- Post-Indonesian: In this type, the voice-marking affixes no longer preserve their functions because the original system has broken down.
West Germanic Language Structure:
West Germanic is the branch that contains today’s most widely spoken language, English. Prominent tongues like German and Dutch are also a part of this group. Today, English is the official language of over 60 countries and is spoken by almost 2 billion people worldwide. It is also considered a lingua franca of the world and helps people communicate when they don’t know each other’s native languages.
The Austronesian and West Germanic structure is incomparable since one is a family, and the other is a branch. Still, a few features of the latter can help people analyze the differences between the two.
- All the vocabularies of this branch share many lexemes, which are a foreign concept to the speakers of North and East Germanic languages.
- In the old languages, the phonology matched that of Proto-Germanic, but lowering the long front vowels has become common in the modern tongues of this branch.
- A lot of words among all the West Germanic languages sound the same. They are even spelled in a somewhat similar fashion, which makes it easier to guess their meaning. However, despite this similarity, most branch members don’t share many features today. Frisian is considered the oldest living relative of English. Still, even that is entirely different today than it used to be, which is why the two are not mutually intelligible.
- Although Frisian is the closest relative of English, the latter also shares a lot of vocabulary with Dutch. This goes to show that similarities between any members of the group are possible.
Today, Dutch and English have adopted many words, so some linguists say the latter speakers can quickly learn the former. As for the structure of Austronesian and West Germanic, the differences are pretty straightforward, even if you are not a linguist. The two groups originated in entirely different places and had their mother tongue. However, both are essential categories and have their own business on the international front. Austronesian and West Germanic have members with over a hundred million speakers.
