II.

Classification

The Austronesian languages are divided into two branches: Formosan, the languages spoken by about 200,000 people in Taiwan; and Malayo-Polynesian, comprising the rest of the languages in the Austronesian family. The Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages consist of the languages of Micronesia, some languages of Melanesia, and the closely related languages of Polynesia, such as Tahitian, Hawaiian, and Maori, which is spoken in New Zealand. The Western Malayo-Polynesian languages include Malay; Javanese; Balinese, spoken in Malaysia and Indonesia; Malagasy, spoken in Madagascar; the Chamic languages, spoken in Vietnam and Cambodia; and Tagalog, on which Filipino, the national language of the Philippines, is based.