Page 131 - THE MELANESIA DIASPORA FILE CETAK ISI 10022017

The classification of language families is done by linguists primarily on the basis of
an approach called historical comparative linguistics. This branch of linguistics classifies
languages on the basis of systematically comparing features in languages to identify if they
are related by sharing a common ancestor language. Another approach is geographical
linguistics, whose methods can be used to produce maps of the geographical distribution
of different languages.
What languages are found in Melanesia and what relationship do they have with
the languages in Indonesia and other neighbouring areas? In Indonesia, the majority
of languages are in the Austronesian language family. Austronesian languages also
form the majority in neighboring Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines. Austronesian
language speaking minorities are also found in Taiwan and, to the west, in Madagascar.
Going eastward, into the Pacific, we find the the languages of the island nations of
the Pacific are also predominantly from the Austronesian language family. This poses
something of a problem because the Melanesian people do not primarily identify
themselves as Austronesian.
The term Melanesian is also problematical because it is used to refer to a number of
different things, a geographical area, a political grouping, or a cultural area. None of these
are either consistent or definitive. The linguistic data show that there is no Melanesian
language family (Comrie et al., 2003, Comrie, 2009). The term Melanesia is probably most
suitably used to describe a geographic area, along with its regional, Oceanic culture.
The countries that belong to this area are Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and
Vanuatu. However, the majority of the languages here are Austronesian, with a smaller
number related to the Non-Austronesian language family. This means that there is a strong
link with the majority of languages in Indonesia. However, culturally, in these countries,
there is a strong identification with the culture of the Non-Austronesian languages.
Further, within Indonesia, about a third of the langauges are from the Non-Austronesian
language family, so this part of Indonesia can be seen as culturally similar to and part of
Melanesia. The term Melanesia is complicated further by its being coopted for use in the
geopolitics of the South Pacific region. The use of the word in regional groupings that have
agitated for the independence of West Papua from Indonesia is one aspect of this.
The etymology of the term “Melanesian”, French spelling Mélanésie, comes from
the Greek iµέλаϛ [melas] which means ‘black’ and νŋϭοϛ [nésos] which means ‘islands’.
This term was coined by Jules Dumontd’Urville in 1832 to give a name to the indigenous
inhabitants as a group and to distinguish them from the Polynesians and Micronesians

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