Polynesia ( UK : / ˌ p ɒ l ɪ ˈ n iː z i ə / POL -in- EE -zee-ə , US : /- ˈ n iː ʒ ə / - EE -zhə ) is a subregion of Oceania , made up of more than 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean . The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are called Polynesians . They have many things in common, including linguistic relations , cultural practices , and traditional beliefs . In centuries past, they had a strong shared tradition of sailing and using stars to navigate at night.
80-725: Bihari languages are a group of the Indo-Aryan languages . The Bihari languages are mainly spoken in the Indian states of Bihar , Jharkhand , Uttar Pradesh , and West Bengal , and also in Nepal . The most widely spoken languages of the Bihari group are Bhojpuri , Magahi and Maithili . Despite the large number of speakers of these languages, only Maithili has been constitutionally recognised in India, which gained constitutional status via
160-532: A lexicostatistical study of the New Indo-Aryan languages based on a 100-word Swadesh list , using techniques developed by the glottochronologist and comparative linguist Sergei Starostin . That grouping system is notable for Kogan's exclusion of Dardic from Indo-Aryan on the basis of his previous studies showing low lexical similarity to Indo-Aryan (43.5%) and negligible difference with similarity to Iranian (39.3%). He also calculated Sinhala–Dhivehi to be
240-517: A Fiji heavily indebted to foreign creditors to the United Kingdom. It became independent on 10 October 1970 and a republic on 28 September 1987. Fiji is classified as Melanesian and (less commonly) Polynesian. Beginning in the late 13th and early 14th centuries, Polynesians began to migrate in waves to New Zealand via their canoes , settling on both the North and South islands as well as
320-682: A Treaty of Friendship on 18 May 1900, when European settlers and rival Tongan chiefs tried to oust the second king. Within the British Empire , which posted no higher permanent representative on Tonga than a British Consul (1901–1970), Tonga formed part of the British Western Pacific Territories (under a High Commissioner who residing in Fiji ) from 1901 until 1952. Despite being under the protectorate, Tonga retained its monarchy without interruption. On June 4, 1970,
400-767: A branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family . As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated east of the Indus river in Bangladesh , North India , Eastern Pakistan , Sri Lanka , Maldives and Nepal . Moreover, apart from the Indian subcontinent , large immigrant and expatriate Indo-Aryan–speaking communities live in Northwestern Europe , Western Asia , North America ,
480-701: A change in the movements of the Pacific Plate in relation to the Indo-Australian Plate . The Pacific plate had previously been subducted under the Australian Plate . When that changed, it had the effect of uplifting the portion of the continent that is modern-day New Zealand. The convergent plate boundary that runs northwards from New Zealand's North Island is called the Kermadec-Tonga subduction zone . This subduction zone
560-563: A non- Polynesian language . Some of the Lau Islands to the southeast of Fiji have strong historic and cultural links with Tonga. However, in essence, Polynesia remains a cultural term referring to one of the three parts of Oceania (the others being Melanesia and Micronesia ). The following islands and island groups are either nations or overseas territories of former colonial powers. The residents are native Polynesians or contain archaeological evidence indicating Polynesian settlement in
640-514: A possibility that the early Lapita Austronesians were direct descendants of the early colonists of the Marianas (which preceded them by about 150 years), which is also supported by pottery evidence. The most eastern site for Lapita archaeological remains recovered so far is at Mulifanua on Upolu . The Mulifanua site, where 4,288 pottery shards have been found and studied, has a "true" age of c. 1000 BC based on radiocarbon dating and
720-733: A region within Polynesia and the categorization of these language groups by Green in 1966 helped to confirm that Polynesian settlement generally took place from west to east. There is a very distinct "East Polynesian" subgroup with many shared innovations not seen in other Polynesian languages. The Marquesas dialects are perhaps the source of the oldest Hawaiian speech which is overlaid by Tahitian-variety speech, as Hawaiian oral histories would suggest. The earliest varieties of New Zealand Maori speech may have had multiple sources from around central Eastern Polynesia, as Maori oral histories would suggest. The Cook Islands are made up of 15 islands comprising
800-499: A standardised and Sanskritised register of Dehlavi , is the official language of the Government of India (along with English ). Together with Urdu , it is the third most-spoken language in the world. The Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, also known as Magadhan languages, are spoken throughout the eastern subcontinent, including Odisha and Bihar , alongside other regions surrounding the northwestern Himalayan corridor. Bengali
880-613: A subfamily of Indo-Aryan. The Dardic group as a genetic grouping (rather than areal) has been scrutinised and questioned to a degree by recent scholarship: Southworth, for example, says "the viability of Dardic as a genuine subgroup of Indo-Aryan is doubtful" and "the similarities among [Dardic languages] may result from subsequent convergence". The Dardic languages are thought to be transitional with Punjabi and Pahari (e.g. Zoller describes Kashmiri as "an interlink between Dardic and West Pahāṛī"), as well as non-Indo-Aryan Nuristani; and are renowned for their relatively conservative features in
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#1732780929821960-662: A subset of the sea-migrating Austronesian people . Tracing Polynesian languages places their prehistoric origins in Island Melanesia , Maritime Southeast Asia , and ultimately, in Taiwan . Between about 3000 and 1000 BC, speakers of Austronesian languages spread from Taiwan into Maritime Southeast Asia . There are three theories regarding the spread of humans across the Pacific to Polynesia. These are outlined well by Kayser et al. (2000) and are as follows: In
1040-629: A widespread Polynesian network or confederacy (or "empire") that was prehistorically ruled by the successive Tui Manuʻa dynasties. Manuan genealogies and religious oral literature also suggest that the Tui Manuʻa had long been one of the most prestigious and powerful paramount of Samoa. Oral history suggests that the Tui Manuʻa kings governed a confederacy of far-flung islands which included Fiji , Tonga as well as smaller western Pacific chiefdoms and Polynesian outliers such as Uvea , Futuna , Tokelau , and Tuvalu . Commerce and exchange routes between
1120-663: Is associated with the volcanism that gave rise to the Kermadec and Tongan islands. There is a transform fault that currently traverses New Zealand's South Island, known as the Alpine Fault . Zealandia's continental shelf has a total area of approximately 3,600,000 km (1,400,000 sq mi). The oldest rocks in Polynesia are found in New Zealand and are believed to be about 510 million years old. The oldest Polynesian rocks outside Zealandia are to be found in
1200-416: Is considered to have lasted roughly 1,000 years. The cause of this gap in voyaging is contentious among archaeologists with a number of competing theories presented including climate shifts, the need for the development of new voyaging techniques, and cultural shifts. After the long pause, dispersion of populations into central and eastern Polynesia began. Although the exact timing of when each island group
1280-591: Is dear" (Mayrhofer II 182), Priyamazda ( priiamazda ) as Priyamedha "whose wisdom is dear" (Mayrhofer II 189, II378), Citrarata as Citraratha "whose chariot is shining" (Mayrhofer I 553), Indaruda/Endaruta as Indrota "helped by Indra " (Mayrhofer I 134), Shativaza ( šattiṷaza ) as Sātivāja "winning the race price" (Mayrhofer II 540, 696), Šubandhu as Subandhu "having good relatives" (a name in Palestine , Mayrhofer II 209, 735), Tushratta ( tṷišeratta, tušratta , etc.) as *tṷaiašaratha, Vedic Tvastar "whose chariot
1360-409: Is derived. This is due to new population being established by a very small number of individuals from a larger population which also causes a loss of genetic variation. Atholl Anderson wrote that analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA, female) and Y chromosome (male) concluded that the ancestors of Polynesian women were Austronesians while those of Polynesian men were Papuans . Subsequently, it
1440-1299: Is difficult to indicate because of unreliable sources. In the urban region most educated speakers of the language name Hindi as their language because this is what they use in formal contexts and believe it to be the appropriate response because of unawareness. The educated and the urban population of the region return Hindi as the generic name for their language. British linguist Grierson also mentioned that Bajjika, Angika and Surjapuri are also spoken in particular districts of Bihar. These languages are mostly spoken in rural areas. The Bihari languages fall into four language subgroups: In India : Western Bihar , Eastern Uttar Pradesh , Western Jharkhand , Northern Chhattisgarh , Northeastern Madhya Pradesh Terai region of Central Nepal Indo-Aryan languages Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes simply Indic languages ) are
1520-656: Is in many cases somewhat arbitrary. The classification of the Indo-Aryan languages is controversial, with many transitional areas that are assigned to different branches depending on classification. There are concerns that a tree model is insufficient for explaining the development of New Indo-Aryan, with some scholars suggesting the wave model . The following table of proposals is expanded from Masica (1991) (from Hoernlé to Turner), and also includes subsequent classification proposals. The table lists only some modern Indo-Aryan languages. Anton I. Kogan , in 2016, conducted
1600-577: Is suggested that "proto-Munda" languages may have once dominated the eastern Indo-Gangetic Plain , and were then absorbed by Indo-Aryan languages at an early date as Indo-Aryan spread east. Marathi-Konkani languages are ultimately descended from Maharashtri Prakrit , whereas Insular Indo-Aryan languages are descended from Elu Prakrit and possess several characteristics that markedly distinguish them from most of their mainland Indo-Aryan counterparts. Insular Indo-Aryan languages (of Sri Lanka and Maldives ) started developing independently and diverging from
1680-430: Is the earliest stage of the Indo-Aryan branch, from which all known languages of the later stages Middle and New Indo-Aryan are derived, some documented Middle Indo-Aryan variants cannot fully be derived from the documented form of Old Indo-Aryan (on which Vedic and Classical Sanskrit are based), but betray features that must go back to other undocumented dialects of Old Indo-Aryan. Polynesia The term Polynésie
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#17327809298211760-469: Is the marker of Austronesian expansions. The high frequencies of mtDNA Haplogroup B in the Polynesians are the result of founder effect and represents the descendants of a few Austronesian females who intermixed with Papuan males. A genomic analysis of modern populations in Polynesia, published in 2021, provides a model of the direction and timing of Polynesian migrations from Samoa to the islands to
1840-568: Is the official language of Gujarat , and is spoken by over 50 million people. In Europe, various Romani languages are spoken by the Romani people , an itinerant community who historically migrated from India. The Western Indo-Aryan languages are thought to have diverged from their northwestern counterparts, although they have a common antecedent in Shauraseni Prakrit . Within India, Central Indo-Aryan languages are spoken primarily in
1920-639: Is the oldest site yet discovered in Polynesia. This is mirrored by a 2010 study also placing the beginning of the human archaeological sequences of Polynesia in Tonga at 900 BC. Within a mere three or four centuries, between 1300 and 900 BC, the Lapita archaeological culture spread 6,000 km further to the east from the Bismarck Archipelago, until reaching as far as Fiji , Tonga , and Samoa . A cultural divide began to develop between Fiji to
2000-567: Is the seventh most-spoken language in the world, and has a strong literary tradition; the national anthems of India and Bangladesh are written in Bengali. Assamese and Odia are the official languages of Assam and Odisha , respectively. The Eastern Indo-Aryan languages descend from Magadhan Apabhraṃśa and ultimately from Magadhi Prakrit . Eastern Indo-Aryan languages display many morphosyntactic features similar to those of Munda languages , while western Indo-Aryan languages do not. It
2080-912: Is thought that the Cook Islands were settled in two periods: the Tahitian Period, when the country was settled between 900 and 1300 AD, and the Maui Settlement, which occurred in 1600 AD, when a large contingent from Tahiti settled in Rarotonga, in the Takitumu district. The first contact between Europeans and the native inhabitants of the Cook Islands took place in 1595 with the arrival of Spanish explorer Álvaro de Mendaña in Pukapuka , who called it San Bernardo (Saint Bernard). A decade later, navigator Pedro Fernández de Quirós made
2160-661: Is vehement" (Mayrhofer, Etym. Wb., I 686, I 736). The earliest evidence of the group is from Vedic Sanskrit , that is used in the ancient preserved texts of the Indian subcontinent , the foundational canon of the Hindu synthesis known as the Vedas . The Indo-Aryan superstrate in Mitanni is of similar age to the language of the Rigveda , but the only evidence of it is a few proper names and specialized loanwords. While Old Indo-Aryan
2240-577: The 92nd amendment to the Constitution of India , of 2003 (gaining assent in 2004). Both Maithili and Bhojpuri have constitutional recognition in Nepal. Bhojpuri is also official in Fiji as Fiji Hindi . There are demands for including Bhojpuri in the 8th schedule of Indian constitution. In Bihar, Hindi is the language used for educational and official matters. These languages were legally absorbed under
2320-666: The British Crown in 1836. In 1840, Royal Navy officer William Hobson and several Māori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi , which transformed New Zealand into a colony of the British Empire and granting all Māori the status of British subjects. However, tensions between Pākehā settlers and the Māori over settler encroachment on Māori lands and disputes over land sales led to the New Zealand Wars (1845–1872) between
2400-745: The Caribbean , Southeast Africa , Polynesia and Australia , along with several million speakers of Romani languages primarily concentrated in Southeastern Europe . There are over 200 known Indo-Aryan languages. Modern Indo-Aryan languages descend from Old Indo-Aryan languages such as early Vedic Sanskrit , through Middle Indo-Aryan languages (or Prakrits ). The largest such languages in terms of first-speakers are Hindi–Urdu ( c. 330 million ), Bengali (242 million), Punjabi (about 150 million), Marathi (112 million), and Gujarati (60 million). A 2005 estimate placed
2480-656: The Chatham Islands . Over the course of several centuries, the Polynesian settlers formed distinct cultures that became known as the Māori on the New Zealand mainland, while those who settled in the Chatham Islands became the Moriori people . Beginning the 17th century, the arrival of Europeans to New Zealand drastically impacted Māori culture. Settlers from Europe (known as " Pākehā ") began to colonize New Zealand in
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2560-769: The German Empire and the United States. The German-controlled Western portion of Samoa (consisting of the bulk of Samoan territory – Savaiʻi, Apolima, Manono and Upolu) was occupied by New Zealand in WWI, and administered by it under a Class C League of Nations mandate . After repeated efforts by the Samoan independence movement, the New Zealand Western Samoa Act of 24 November 1961 granted Samoa independence, effective on January 1, 1962, upon which
2640-563: The Kingdom of Tonga became independent from the British Empire. The reef islands and atolls of Tuvalu are identified as being part of West Polynesia. During pre-European-contact times there was frequent canoe voyaging between the islands as Polynesian navigation skills are recognised to have allowed deliberate journeys on double-hull sailing canoes or outrigger canoes . Eight of the nine islands of Tuvalu were inhabited; thus
2720-593: The Solomon Islands . The Tongan influence brought Polynesian customs and language throughout most of Polynesia. The empire began to decline in the 13th century. After a bloody civil war, political power in Tonga eventually fell under the Tuʻi Kanokupolu dynasty in the 16th century. In 1845, the ambitious young warrior, strategist, and orator Tāufaʻāhau united Tonga into a more Western-style kingdom. He held
2800-460: The Tovata confederacy of Fiji. This is where most Fijian-Polynesian linguistic interactions occurred. In the chronology of the exploration and first populating of Polynesia, there is a gap commonly referred to as the long pause between the first populating of Fiji ( Melanesia ), Western Polynesia of Tonga and Samoa among others and the settlement of the rest of the region. In general this gap
2880-525: The colonial government and the Māori. In response to the conflict, the colonial government initiated a series of land confiscations from the Māori. This social upheaval, combined with epidemics of infectious diseases from Europe, devastated both the Māori population and their social standing in New Zealand. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the Maori population began to recover, and efforts were made to redress social, economic, political and economic issues facing
2960-453: The ' Australo-Papuans ' of New Guinea and the Solomon Islands . The preliminary analysis of skulls found at the Teouma and Talasiu Lapita sites is that they lack Australian or Papuan affinities and instead have affinities to mainland Asian populations. A 2017 DNA analysis of modern Polynesians indicates that there has been intermarriage resulting in a mixed Austronesian-Papuan ancestry of
3040-526: The 19th century, leading to tension with the indigenous Māori. On October 28, 1835, a group of Māori tribesmen issued a declaration of independence (drafted by Scottish businessman James Busby ) as the " United Tribes of New Zealand ", in order to resist potential efforts at colonizing New Zealand by the French and prevent merchant ships and their cargo which belonged to Māori merchants from being seized at foreign ports. The new state received recognition from
3120-520: The Bismarck Archipelago. The modern Polynesians still show human genetic results of a Melanesian culture which allowed indigenous men, but not women, to "marry in" – useful evidence for matrilocality. Although matrilocality and matrilineality receded at some early time, Polynesians and most other Austronesian speakers in the Pacific Islands were and are still highly "matricentric" in their traditional jurisprudence. The Lapita pottery for which
3200-637: The Hawaiian Emperor Seamount Chain and are 80 million years old. Polynesia is generally defined as the islands within the Polynesian Triangle , although some islands inhabited by Polynesians are situated outside the Polynesian Triangle. Geographically, the Polynesian Triangle is drawn by connecting the points of Hawaii , New Zealand , and Easter Island . The other main island groups located within
3280-689: The Kingdom of Fiji by 1871. In around 1855 a Tongan prince, Enele Ma'afu , proclaimed the Lau islands as his kingdom, and took the title Tui Lau . Fiji had been ruled by numerous divided chieftains until Cakobau unified the landmass. The Lapita culture, the ancestors of the Polynesians, existed in Fiji from about 3500 BC until they were displaced by the Melanesians about a thousand years later. (Both Samoans and subsequent Polynesian cultures adopted Melanesian painting and tattoo methods.) In 1873, Cakobau ceded
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3360-692: The Mittani are either in Hurrian (which appears to have been the predominant language of their kingdom) or Akkadian (the main diplomatic language of the Late Bronze Age Near East), these apparently Indo-Aryan names suggest that an Indo-Aryan elite imposed itself over the Hurrians in the course of the Indo-Aryan expansion . If these traces are Indo-Aryan, they would be the earliest known direct evidence of Indo-Aryan, and would increase
3440-586: The Māori in wider New Zealand society. Beginning in the 1960s, a protest movement emerged seeking redress for historical grievances . In the 2013 New Zealand census , roughly 600,000 people in New Zealand identified as being Māori. In the 9th century, the Tui Manuʻa controlled a vast maritime empire comprising most of the settled islands of Polynesia. The Tui Manuʻa is one of the oldest Samoan titles in Samoa. Traditional oral literature of Samoa and Manu'a talks of
3520-584: The Northern and Southern groups. The islands are spread out across many kilometers of a vast ocean. The largest of these islands is called Rarotonga, which is also the political and economic capital of the nation. The Cook Islands were formerly known as the Hervey Islands, but this name refers only to the Northern Groups. It is unknown when this name was changed to reflect the current name. It
3600-649: The Polynesian Triangle are Samoa , Tonga , the Cook Islands , Tuvalu , Tokelau , Niue , Wallis and Futuna , and French Polynesia . Also, small Polynesian settlements are in Papua New Guinea , the Solomon Islands , the Caroline Islands , and Vanuatu . An island group with strong Polynesian cultural traits outside of this great triangle is Rotuma , situated north of Fiji . The people of Rotuma have many common Polynesian traits, but speak
3680-472: The Polynesians (as with other modern Austronesians, with the exception of Taiwanese aborigines ). Research at the Teouma and Talasiu Lapita sites implies that the migration and intermarriage, which resulted in the mixed Austronesian-Papuan ancestry of the Polynesians, occurred after the first initial migration to Vanuatu and Tonga. A complete mtDNA and genome-wide SNP comparison (Pugach et al. , 2021) of
3760-664: The South Sea Islands because of their relative proximity to the southern Pacific islands, even though they are in fact located in the North Pacific . Another term in use, which avoids this inconsistency, is "the Polynesian Triangle " (from the shape created by the layout of the islands in the Pacific Ocean). This term makes clear that the grouping includes the Hawaiian Islands, which are located at
3840-443: The Teouma Lapita site ( Efate Island , Vanuatu ) and the Talasiu Lapita site (near Nuku'alofa , Tonga ) published in 2016 supports the Express Train model; although with the qualification that the migration bypassed New Guinea and Island Melanesia . The conclusion from research published in 2016 is that the initial population of those two sites appears to come directly from Taiwan or the northern Philippines and did not mix with
3920-427: The Trusteeship Agreement terminated. The new Independent State of Samoa was not a monarchy, though the Malietoa titleholder remained very influential. It effectively ended however with the death of Malietoa Tanumafili II , the country's head of state, on May 11, 2007. In the 10th century, the Tuʻi Tonga Empire was established in Tonga, and most of the Western Pacific came within its sphere of influence, up to parts of
4000-829: The archaeological record, there are well-defined traces of this expansion which allow the path it took to be followed and dated with some certainty. It is thought that by roughly 1400 BC, " Lapita peoples", so-named after their pottery tradition, appeared in the Bismarck Archipelago of northwest Melanesia . This culture is seen as having adapted and evolved through time and space since its emergence "Out of Taiwan ". They had given up rice production, for instance, which required paddy field agriculture unsuitable for small islands. However, they still cultivated other ancestral Austronesian staple cultigens like Dioscorea yams and taro (the latter are still grown with smaller-scale paddy field technology), as well as adopting new ones like breadfruit and sweet potato . The results of research at
4080-426: The chiefly title of Tuʻi Kanokupolu, but had been baptised with the name Jiaoji ("George") in 1831. In 1875, with the help of the missionary Shirley Waldemar Baker , he declared Tonga a constitutional monarchy, formally adopted the western royal style, emancipated the "serfs", enshrined a code of law, land tenure, and freedom of the press, and limited the power of the chiefs. Tonga became a British protectorate under
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#17327809298214160-451: The context of Proto-Indo-Aryan . The Northern Indo-Aryan languages , also known as the Pahari ('hill') languages, are spoken throughout the Himalayan regions of the subcontinent. Northwestern Indo-Aryan languages are spoken in the northwestern region of India and eastern region of Pakistan. Punjabi is spoken predominantly in the Punjab region and is the official language of the northern Indian state of Punjab , in addition to being
4240-403: The continental Indo-Aryan languages from around 5th century BCE. The following languages are otherwise unclassified within Indo-Aryan: Dates indicate only a rough time frame. Proto-Indo-Aryan (or sometimes Proto-Indic ) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Indo-Aryan languages. It is intended to reconstruct the language of the pre-Vedic Indo-Aryans . Proto-Indo-Aryan is meant to be
4320-401: The decline of the Tui Manuʻa's power, with the western isles of Savaiʻi and Upolu rising to prominence in the post-Tongan occupation period and the establishment of the tafaʻifa system that dominated Samoan politics well into the 20th century. This was disrupted in the early 1900s due to colonial intervention, with east–west division by Tripartite Convention (1899) and subsequent annexation by
4400-423: The east. This model presents consistencies and inconsistencies with models of Polynesian migration that are based on archaeology and linguistic analysis. The 2021 genomic model presents a migration pathway from Samoa to the Cook Islands (Rarotonga), then to the Society Islands (Tōtaiete mā) in the 11th century AD, the western Austral Islands (Tuha'a Pae) and the Tuāmotu Archipelago in the 12th century AD, with
4480-424: The first European landing in the islands when he set foot on Rakahanga in 1606, calling it Gente Hermosa (Beautiful People). Cook Islanders are ethnically Polynesians or Eastern Polynesia. They are culturally associated with Tahiti, Eastern Islands, NZ Maori and Hawaii. The Lau Islands were subject to periods of Tongan rulership and then Fijian control until their eventual conquest by Seru Epenisa Cakobau of
4560-433: The general archaeological complex of the earliest "Oceanic" Austronesian speakers in the Pacific Islands are named also lapsed in Western Polynesia. Language, social life and material culture were very distinctly "Polynesian" by 1000 BC. Early European observers detected theocratic elements in traditional Polynesian government. Linguistically, there are five sub-groups of the Polynesian language group . Each represents
4640-405: The horse race). The numeral aika "one" is of particular importance because it places the superstrate in the vicinity of Indo-Aryan proper as opposed to Indo-Iranian in general or early Iranian (which has aiva ). Another text has babru ( babhru , "brown"), parita ( palita , "grey"), and pinkara ( pingala , "red"). Their chief festival was the celebration of the solstice ( vishuva ) which
4720-429: The initial settlement of individual islands; although Professor Matisoo-Smith of the Otago study said that the founding Māori population of New Zealand must have been in the hundreds, much larger than previously thought. The Polynesian population experienced a founder effect and genetic drift. The Polynesian may be distinctively different both genotypically and phenotypically from the parent population from which it
4800-421: The migrant pathway branching to the north to the Marquesas (Te Henua 'Enana), to Raivavae in the south, and to the easternmost destination on Easter Island (Rapa Nui), which was settled in approximately 1200 AD via Mangareva . The Polynesians were matrilineal and matrilocal Stone Age societies upon their arrival in Tonga , Samoa and the surrounding islands, after having spent at least some time in
4880-502: The most divergent Indo-Aryan branch. Nevertheless, the modern consensus of Indo-Aryan linguists tends towards the inclusion of Dardic based on morphological and grammatical features. The Inner–Outer hypothesis argues for a core and periphery of Indo-Aryan languages, with Outer Indo-Aryan (generally including Eastern and Southern Indo-Aryan, and sometimes Northwestern Indo-Aryan, Dardic and Pahari ) representing an older stratum of Old Indo-Aryan that has been mixed to varying degrees with
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#17327809298214960-469: The most widely-spoken language in Pakistan. Sindhi and its variants are spoken natively in the Pakistani province of Sindh and neighbouring regions. Northwestern languages are ultimately thought to be descended from Shauraseni Prakrit , with influence from Persian and Arabic . Western Indo-Aryan languages are spoken in central and western India, in states such as Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan , in addition to contiguous regions in Pakistan. Gujarati
5040-483: The newer stratum that is Inner Indo-Aryan. It is a contentious proposal with a long history, with varying degrees of claimed phonological and morphological evidence. Since its proposal by Rudolf Hoernlé in 1880 and refinement by George Grierson it has undergone numerous revisions and a great deal of debate, with the most recent iteration by Franklin Southworth and Claus Peter Zoller based on robust linguistic evidence (particularly an Outer past tense in -l- ). Some of
5120-425: The northern vertex of the referenced "triangle". Polynesia is characterized by a small amount of land spread over a very large portion of the mid- and southern Pacific Ocean . It comprises approximately 300,000 to 310,000 square kilometres (117,000 to 118,000 sq mi) of land, of which more than 270,000 km (103,000 sq mi) are within New Zealand . The Hawaiian archipelago comprises about half
5200-421: The overarching label Hindi in the 1961 Census. Such state and national politics are creating conditions for language endangerments. After independence Hindi was given the sole official status through the Bihar Official Language Act, 1950. Hindi was displaced as the sole official language of Bihar in 1981, when Urdu was accorded the status of the second official language. The number of speakers of Bihari languages
5280-488: The past. Some islands of Polynesian origin are outside the general triangle that geographically defines the region. The Line Islands and the Phoenix Islands , most of which are parts of Kiribati , had no permanent settlements until European colonization, but are often considered to be parts of the Polynesian Triangle . Polynesians once inhabited the Auckland Islands , the Kermadec Islands , and Norfolk Island in pre-colonial times, but these islands were uninhabited by
5360-542: The precision in dating the split between the Indo-Aryan and Iranian languages (as the texts in which the apparent Indicisms occur can be dated with some accuracy). In a treaty between the Hittites and the Mitanni, the deities Mitra , Varuna , Indra , and the Ashvins ( Nasatya ) are invoked. Kikkuli 's horse training text includes technical terms such as aika (cf. Sanskrit eka , "one"), tera ( tri , "three"), panza ( panca , "five"), satta ( sapta , seven), na ( nava , "nine"), vartana ( vartana , "turn", round in
5440-453: The predecessor of Old Indo-Aryan (1500–300 BCE), which is directly attested as Vedic and Mitanni-Aryan . Despite the great archaicity of Vedic, however, the other Indo-Aryan languages preserve a small number of conservative features lost in Vedic . Some theonyms, proper names, and other terminology of the Late Bronze Age Mitanni civilization of Upper Mesopotamia exhibit an Indo-Aryan superstrate. While what few written records left by
5520-502: The remainder. Most Polynesian islands and archipelagos , including the Hawaiian Islands and Samoa , are composed of volcanic islands built by hotspots (volcanoes). The other land masses in Polynesia — New Zealand , Norfolk Island , and Ouvéa , the Polynesian outlier near New Caledonia — are the unsubmerged portions of the largely sunken continent of Zealandia . Zealandia is believed to have mostly sunk below sea level 23 million years ago, and recently partially resurfaced due to
5600-431: The remains of early settlers of the Mariana Islands and early Lapita individuals from Vanuatu and Tonga also suggest that both migrations originated directly from the same ancient Austronesian source population from the Philippines . The complete absence of "Papuan" admixture in the early samples indicates that these early voyages bypassed eastern Indonesia and the rest of New Guinea . The authors have also suggested
5680-492: The theory's skeptics include Suniti Kumar Chatterji and Colin P. Masica . The below classification follows Masica (1991) , and Kausen (2006) . Percentage of Indo-Aryan speakers by native language: The Dardic languages (also Dardu or Pisaca) are a group of Indo-Aryan languages largely spoken in the northwestern extremities of the Indian subcontinent. Dardic was first formulated by George Abraham Grierson in his Linguistic Survey of India but he did not consider it to be
5760-671: The time European explorers arrived. The oceanic islands to the east of Easter Island, such as Clipperton Island , the Galápagos Islands , and the Juan Fernández Islands , were in the past formerly categorized on rare occasion as part of Polynesia. No evidence of prehistoric contact with either Polynesians or the indigenous peoples of the Americas has been found. The Polynesian people are considered, by linguistic, archaeological, and human genetic evidence,
5840-402: The total number of native speakers of the Indo-Aryan languages at nearly 900 million people. Other estimates are higher suggesting a figure of 1.5 billion speakers of Indo-Aryan languages. The Indo-Aryan family as a whole is thought to represent a dialect continuum , where languages are often transitional towards neighboring varieties. Because of this, the division into languages vs. dialects
5920-489: The west, and the distinctive Polynesian language and culture emerging on Tonga and Samoa to the east. Where there was once faint evidence of uniquely shared developments in Fijian and Polynesian speech, most of this is now called "borrowing" and is thought to have occurred in those and later years more than as a result of continuing unity of their earliest dialects on those far-flung lands. Contacts were mediated especially through
6000-554: The western Gangetic plains , including Delhi and parts of the Central Highlands , where they are often transitional with neighbouring lects. Many of these languages, including Braj and Awadhi , have rich literary and poetic traditions. Urdu , a Persianised derivative of Dehlavi descended from Shauraseni Prakrit , is the official language of Pakistan and also has strong historical connections to India , where it also has been designated with official status. Hindi ,
6080-467: The western Polynesian societies are well documented and it is speculated that the Tui Manuʻa dynasty grew through its success in obtaining control over the oceanic trade of currency goods such as finely woven ceremonial mats, whale ivory " tabua ", obsidian and basalt tools, chiefly red feathers, and seashells reserved for royalty (such as polished nautilus and the egg cowry ). Samoa's long history of various ruling families continued until well after
6160-587: Was common in most cultures in the ancient world. The Mitanni warriors were called marya , the term for "warrior" in Sanskrit as well; note mišta-nnu (= miẓḍha , ≈ Sanskrit mīḍha ) "payment (for catching a fugitive)" (M. Mayrhofer, Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen , Heidelberg, 1986–2000; Vol. II:358). Sanskritic interpretations of Mitanni royal names render Artashumara ( artaššumara ) as Ṛtasmara "who thinks of Ṛta " (Mayrhofer II 780), Biridashva ( biridašṷa, biriiašṷ a) as Prītāśva "whose horse
6240-663: Was first used in 1756 by the French writer Charles de Brosses , who originally applied it to all the islands of the Pacific . In 1831, Jules Dumont d'Urville proposed a narrower definition during a lecture at the Société de Géographie of Paris. By tradition, the islands located in the southern Pacific have also often been called the South Sea Islands , and their inhabitants have been called South Sea Islanders . The Hawaiian Islands have often been considered to be part of
6320-459: Was found that 96% (or 93.8%) of Polynesian mtDNA has an Asian origin, as does one-third of Polynesian Y chromosomes; the remaining two-thirds from New Guinea and nearby islands; this is consistent with matrilocal residence patterns. Polynesians existed from the intermixing of few ancient Austronesian-Melanesian founders, genetically they belong almost entirely to the Haplogroup B (mtDNA), which
6400-409: Was settled is debated, it is widely accepted that the island groups in the geographic center of the region (i.e. the Cook Islands , Society Islands , Marquesas Islands , etc.) were settled initially between 1000 and 1150 AD, and ending with more far flung island groups such as Hawaii , New Zealand , and Easter Island settled between 1200 and 1300 AD. Tiny populations may have been involved in
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