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In linguistics, Melanesian is an obsolete term referring to the Austronesian languages of Melanesia: that is, the Oceanic, Eastern Malayo-Polynesian, or Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages apart from Polynesian and Micronesian. A typical classification of the Austronesian languages ca. 1970 would divide them into something like the following branches:[1]
- Formosan languages (Northern)
- Western Malayo-Polynesian
- Eastern Malayo-Polynesian
- Melanesian languages (including Fijian)
- Micronesian languages
- Polynesian languages
- ^ Merritt Ruhlen, 1991, A Guide to the World's Languages, p 165