Abstract:
This chapter describes the origins of Polynesian languages as uncovered through research and reconstruction methods in the discipline of comparative-historical linguistics. The origins of Polynesian languages are not distinct from the history of the speakers of those languages. The story told here brings the understanding that Polynesian peoples were once one people, the Proto-Polynesians, living in one community, the Proto-Polynesian homeland, speaking one language, the Proto-Polynesian language, which expressed one culture, the Proto-Polynesian culture. From the time of the Proto-Polynesians, approximately 3,000 years ago, until now, Polynesians have undergone a process of differentiation into the modern Polynesian peoples of today, but some words and customs are still retained from earlier times. The chapter is intended to tell about the research methods of reconstruction of history employed in comparative-linguistics. It is also aimed at allowing us Pacific peoples to look back at our common origins and be aware of our periods of common history and development over the ages, thereby appreciating our connectedness and relationality. Today in the Pacific diaspora in New Zealand and other metropolitan countries, it is as if Polynesians of different nationalities and other Pacific peoples have come together again to form once more just one people – the people of the Pacific.