Comparisons among the Austronesian-speaking peoples have a long history (see Jolly and Mosko 1994:1-18; Bellwood, Fox and Tryon 1995:1-16). By definition, all such “Austronesian” comparisons must, either implicitly or explicitly, be carried out in reference to some understanding of the Austronesian language family. Linguistic relations among Austronesian languages point to relations of historical derivation, often of a time depth that provides a perspective for comparison. It is, for example, of comparative significance to recognize that although Palau (or Belau) is located in Micronesia, the language of its population is classified as a Western Malayo-Polynesian language. Many of the fundamental features of Belau culture may thus bear a closer resemblance to cultures far to the west than to those of many of their own nearer neighbours (see Fox 1992, 1995a:42-45).

There are by present reckoning roughly 1200 Austronesian languages, of which all but about 14 form part of the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup (see Ross 1995; Tryon 1995). In recent years, as historical linguistic research has developed, our understanding of linguistic relationships within this large family has been vastly enhanced. In the process, earlier suppositions about higher order relationships among these languages have been re-examined and, in some cases, called into question. As a result, there are many issues of linguistic classification that are currently the subject of considerable debate (see Ross 1995 for an extensive examination of a variety of current issues in Austronesian linguistics).

Present uncertainties have much to do with the nature of the Austronesian expansion and the consequences of constructing the Austronesian family tree to represent this expansion (Ross 1995:45-55). The schematic representation of the diversification of Austronesian languages has generally relied upon a “rightsided” branching to denote a group of speakers that has separated itself and migrated from another settled population. While this migration may constitute a clear separation from a parent language, it gives no indication of the status of the language or dialects of the “stay-at-home” population. If the separating language were part of a dialect chain, then the historical break produced by the migrating group may be easier to identify as a distinctive linguistic occurrence than the differentiation that may occur among localized communities whose dialects slowly diverge, in diverse ways, over a long period of time.

Thus, for example, in terms of the primary separation that occurred within the Austronesian family, it is reasonable to inquire whether the various Austronesian languages of Taiwan — such as Atayal, Rukai and Paiwan — were part of one or more Formosan dialect linkages (Ross 1995:45-49). Similarly but for even more complex reasons, as both Blust (1985) and Ross (1995:72) have noted, the languages assigned to Western Malayo-Polynesian may not all form a single subgroup. And if this is true of the Western Malayo-Polynesian languages, the unity of so-called Central Malayo-Polynesian subgroups is even more questionable.

In a situation where so much historical linguistic research is underway, it is useful to continue to draw provisional schematic representations of the Austronesian language family as Tryon has done for the Comparative Austronesian Dictionary (1995:22-28) and at the same time to draw up lists of Austronesian language groupings within provisional subgroups for further consideration as Ross has done in his sequel commentary on Tryon’s classification (1995). These different perspectives provide both a specific and a general structure that can (and will) be subjected to modification as research progresses.

The papers in this volume may be taken to present a broad cross-section of Austronesian societies whose separation can be interpreted to represent a dispersal over a period of some 3000 to 4000 years. The arrangement of papers in the volume is explicitly intended to achieve a rough balance in coverage across the Austronesian- (or more accurately, the Malayo-Polynesian-) speaking world and at the same time to highlight similarities (and differences) among larger linguistic subgroups.

In terms of the present provisional classification of Austronesian languages, the societies discussed in this volume belong to three large subgroupings: Western, Central and Eastern Malayo-Polynesian, which also represent a broad regional distribution of these languages. The Iban, the Mandaya, the Makassarese and both the Tausug and the Sama-Bajau are groups whose languages would be classified as Western Malayo-Polynesian. Similarly the various related languages of the Timor area, the languages of Sikka and Tana ’Ai, that of Palu’é, Buru and that of the Mayawo of Damer would all be classified within Central Malayo-Polynesian, even though the differences among these languages is considerable. Finally Rarotongan in the Cook Islands, the language of Satawal in the Caroline Islands and Tongan all belong to Eastern Malayo-Polynesian. In terms of Ross’s classification (1995:74-94), this range of languages includes at least four distinct language groups in both the Western and Central Malayo-Polynesian subgroups and at least two in Eastern-Malayo-Polynesian. The extent to which similarities are discernible across this range of societies may be indicative of the sharing of fundamental cultural conceptions that constitute some of the epistemic ideas of the Austronesians.