Austronesian

The Austronesian story is one of the greatest migration epics in human history. Beginning in Taiwan around 5,000 years ago, these seafaring peoples sailed outward in successive waves — first to the Philippines, then Indonesia, then across the Indian Ocean to Madagascar and across the Pacific to Hawaii, Easter Island, and New Zealand. They navigated thousands of miles of open ocean using stars, currents, and bird flight patterns.

The Malayo-Polynesian branch, which includes all Austronesian languages outside Taiwan, produced the dominant languages of maritime Southeast Asia. Malay became the lingua franca of the spice trade, while Javanese developed one of the world's great literary traditions. In the Pacific, Polynesian navigators reached every habitable island.

Today Austronesian languages face contrasting fates. Indonesian/Malay is one of the world's most spoken languages, while hundreds of smaller Pacific and Philippine languages teeter on the edge of extinction. The family's legacy lives in every English word borrowed from Malay — 'orangutan,' 'bamboo,' 'amok' — and in the Polynesian voyaging traditions being revived across the Pacific.